Kuppet: 123,000 tutors left out in recent promotions

A teachers’ union is demanding the elevation of at least 123,000 members who were locked out for lack of funds in the just concluded promotions by their employer.

The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) Friday said it is pushing the State to allocate more funds to promote the remaining teachers.

“We are now pushing the government and Parliament to allocate more funds to promote the remaining teachers,” said Kuppet Secretary-General Akello Misori, estimating that the number of teachers left out was about 130,000.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) promoted some 36,000 teachers in the recently concluded exercise.

But this was greeted with discontentment in the teaching fraternity.

But TSC cited a lack of funds to promote teachers, explaining that it only filled gaps caused by natural attrition. The teacher’s employer was allocated Sh1 billion for promotions in the current financial year, although it had requested Sh2.2 billion.

“The issue of stagnation is real. It has resulted in a lot of demoralised teachers in the service,” Mr Misori said, adding that some teachers were quitting the service for lack of motivation.

The teachers’ employer had invited applications for promotion in August last year and interviews were conducted at the county level in December 2023 and January this year.

The teachers, many of who have stagnated in the same job groups for years, were interviewed for vacancies in primary, secondary schools and teacher training colleges.

TSC this week published a list of 36,505 teachers who were successful following the interviews.

Last week, Kenya National Union of Teachers Secretary-General Collins Oyuu asked TSC to pay arrears to promoted teachers for the time they qualified for promotion but were not assigned to the new job grades.

At the same time, Kuppet said it was in conversation with TSC seeking to compel the teacher’s employer to establish the Kenya School of Teachers and Education Management to enhance capacity building and professional development for educators.

Kuppet also wants the TSC to establish a teacher regulatory agency to oversee the profession, similar to what other professional bodies have.

Mr Misori explained that the creation of the agency borrows from the model of Law Society of Kenya as the case with advocates, among others.

He said the constitution guaranteed the establishment of such a body.