Teachers’ appraisal set for analysis

The job evaluation report for teachers that was conducted by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission will be released for analysis this week.

SRC’s head of Communication Ali Chege said the exercise will be carried out by the teacher’s employer — Teachers Service Commission — and education experts.

“Job evaluation is not a one-day event. We were doing the exercise for the entire public service,” said Mr Chege.

Teachers have protested the delay in the release of the report which was carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers on behalf of SRC, claiming that it is a strategy to deny them more benefits despite doing a lot.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary-General Wilson Sossion said the findings will play a critical in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement for teachers.

Mr Sossion said sufficient advice from the SRC was required to enable the union and the TSC reach an agreement and sign a new pay deal that will cover the period between 2017 and 2021.

“We need the report for the negotiations which are set to start this month,” said Mr Sossion.

The content of the report has remained the subject of speculation with Knut claiming on its social media that SRC had declined to release it due to proposals that call for better terms of service for teachers.

Knut alleges that the report has several proposals among them increase of teachers salary by 40 per cent, employing of more teachers and improve all teaching and learning environment.

However, Mr Chege declined to discuss the content of the report.

The job evaluation was to determine the true worth of teachers' work in the public service and was conducted in all the 47 counties.

The remuneration for each grade will be determined by the pay structure developed through a salary benchmarking exercise targeted on 298,000 teachers.