Kuppet vows to block bid by Knut, schools to disband TSC

A teachers' union has vowed to oppose any attempt to disband the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) as proposed by a rival union and private schools.

Akelo Misori, Secretary-General of the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet), insisted that it will continue to defend the commission's constitutional role in management of teachers in the public service.

“The union rejects proposals by Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), the Association of Private School Owners and the lobby of international schools in Kenya to have the TSC's powers in teacher management weakened,” Mr Misori said in a statement.

STRONG TSC

The official noted that Kuppet called for a strong TSC in the views it gave the Building Bridges Initiative Taskforce on 1 August 2019,

“These views have not changed and Kuppet will provide an update of that memo in the coming days to challenge the misinformation by Knut and other bodies over TSC's role,” he added.

He said, however, that the union’s support for the TSC's role does not, in any way, imply complete endorsement of the current teacher management frameworks.

“Far from it. Kuppet has been working with other stakeholders in the sector, including the deans of schools of education in all Kenyan universities, to find long-lasting solutions to certain aspects of teacher management,” he said.

In that regard, he said, the union will host all deans to a conference in Nairobi in March for discussions on concrete solutions for the issues of teacher training, discipline and professional development.

“It should be noted that most of the issues being blamed on the TSC spring from the commission's uptake of functions that do not belong to it as an employer,” he said.

PERFORMANCE

Mr Misori noted that despite challenges, the commission whose chief executive is Nancy Macharia, has performed commendably since its creation.

As such, he said, it should be strengthened, not weakened or abolished, as the aforementioned institutions hold.

Kuppet is planning to call for abolition of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), which it says has become a stumbling block to social dialogue in the public sector.

“The SRC's existence negates our constitutionally mandated role of trade unions and Article 96 of the ILO Convention. A third party entity cannot purport to design salary policies that impinge on the negotiation between workers and employers,’ said Mr Misori.