Teachers to be promoted as TSC shakes up schools

What you need to know:

  • 24,000 to move to the next job group and more than 1,000 to be transferred starting in January

Some 24,000 teachers have been lined up for possible promotions in January.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has invited the staff members, currently on Job Group L, for interviews starting next month.

Of those to be interviewed, TSC secretary Gabriel Lengoiboni said the commission would promote 8,000 to job group M.

“We want to start the interviews immediately after we complete the ongoing teacher recruitment exercise,” he said on Monday referring to the employment of 11,000 teachers countrywide expected to end next week.

“The new recruits (of 11,000 teachers) will have to be posted before we start the interviews.”

For the first time, Mr Lengoiboni said, interviews for the  promotion would be conducted in counties.

This will help speed up the exercise and save teachers the cost of travelling to the commission’s headquarters as has been the case before.

The positions were advertised a year ago.

Teachers in Job Group L are a common cadre of university graduates who would have moved to the job group after serving for at least three  years in the previous job group (K).

Salary rise

Once they are promoted to job group M, they will  qualify to be called senior teachers who can become heads of departments, deputy principals and heads of small schools.

They would also expect to earn about Sh5,000 more. The highest salary for a teacher in job group L is Sh35,000, less house and other allowances.

Besides, some of them receive more salary than their current job groups.

Mr Lengoiboni said the commission had already finalised constituting panels that would be travelling to counties for the interviews.

The panels will work on a rotation basis.

“Rotating the panels will enable us to minimise cases of corruption,” he said.

He said the commission wished to apply strict guidelines in the interviews as the best way to ensure meritocracy in promotions.

Additionally, some staff from the commission will be dispatched to team up with county staff to help strengthen their work.

Mr Lengoiboni also announced that more teachers would be recruited.

The next batch will be that of teachers seeking to enter job groups N, P, Q and R, many of them school heads and principals.

Those targeted in any of the job groups would have served in one job group for at least three years.

Mr Lengoiboni also announced that 1,043 teachers would be transferred this month.

Already, the commission has arranged to have their places filled up  by new recruits who are expected to report to their stations next month.

Mr Lengoiboni said teachers who would be affected by the transfers include those who had served in one school for a long time and others who had applied for transfer.