TSC, unions to agree on salary deal implementation this week
Teachers Service Commission boss Nancy Macharia inspects a guard of honour mounted by scouts at Langalanga Secondary School in Nakuru on Friday. PHOTO | FRANCIS MUREITHI | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
Mr Sossion said the unions will endeavour to add it as an annex to the CBA signed last year.
The government on several occasions has assured teachers that the salary deal will be honoured.
The deal will cost taxpayers Sh13.7 billion every year and the 305,000 teachers in public schools and colleges will benefit.
It added that most Boards of Management employed teachers to bridge staff shortfalls.
Teachers and their employer are likely to agree by this week how to implement a salary rise awarded last year, a top union official said.
Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary–General Wilson Sossion said: “The CBA implementation schedule shall be agreed upon with the Teachers’ Service Commission and the unions and made public hopefully by June 20 ahead of Kenya Secondary School Heads Conference in Mombasa.”
Mr Sossion said the unions will endeavour to add it as an annex to the CBA signed last year.
“The implementation schedule is flexible and can be renegotiated from time to time in the best interests of teachers within the four year period by both parties,” the secretary-general explained.
DEAL SIGNED
He assured teachers that the deal that they signed with their employer is the best.
“A Sh54 billion CBA is the biggest win ever for all teachers. We thank our members for their loyal support to the union,” said Mr Sossion.
The government on several occasions has assured teachers that the salary deal will be honoured.
The deal will cost taxpayers Sh13.7 billion every year and the 305,000 teachers in public schools and colleges will benefit.
Meanwhile, a report has revealed that some schools are employing teachers despite having enough on TSC payroll.
ACUTE SHORTAGE
The report by a special investigation team on last year’s school unrest stated that there is a general perception on acute shortage of teachers.
“The investigation team analysed samples of the teaching load in various schools visited and found that most teachers had teaching loads below the prescribed 27 lessons per week,” says the report that was released last month.
It added that most Boards of Management (BOM) employed teachers to bridge staff shortfalls.
However, the team said it established that in some cases, there was no real shortage as the schools had enough TSC employed teachers.
TEACHING LOAD
“In one school there was an adequate number of TSC employed yet an equal number of BOM teachers were employed, leading to a teaching load of as low as 12 lessons per week. This was gross misuse of public resources as it amounted to unnecessary payments,” it adds.
In another instance, the report said, BOM employed teachers were internally appointed to positions of responsibility such as Heads of Department, and were expected to supervise teachers employed by TSC.
In other cases, unqualified Form Four leavers were employed to mark commercially sourced examinations against the guidelines by TSC.
