Teachers face new audit on appraisals from Monday

Education officials will from Monday start visiting schools to assess the progress of evaluation programmes for principals and teachers.

They will monitor how performance contracting introduced last year in schools despite opposition from teachers unions is being implemented.

“The exercise will involve visits to various schools where teachers and heads of institution will give feedback on the effectiveness of the programmes since performance contracting and teacher appraisal were introduced in schools in January 2016,” said Mr Kihumba Kamotho of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).

He said the exercise will be led by TSC chairperson Lydia Nzomo backed by senior ministry of education officials.

The online appraisal platform for more than 290,000 teachers was launched in November last year and involves the collection of data by county education directors who then upload it in the national system each term.

MANAGE RESOURCES

The appraisals are meant to determine how headteachers manage financial and human resources, how they supervise teaching and learning activities besides maintaining high teaching standards.

The school heads are also expected to ensure customer satisfaction and compliance with the Constitution.

The scheme is based on teachers’ professional knowledge and its application, their preparation and use of schemes of work, lesson notes and learners records.

Other areas of assessment include time management, participation in co-curricular activities, collaboration and networking, professional conduct, learner protection and safety and professional development.

The evaluation is meant to make the assignment, training, promotion and deployment of teachers easier. It was also meant to stop absenteeism of teachers and absconding of duties, which have been blamed for poor performance.