Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Western Regional Director, Joseph Oduor Mugele has said that the TSC will sensitize teachers on new grading system that was established in 2017, that allows the employer to pay teachers according to the work done in school.
Mugele said that the grading system will come in to operation after evaluation done by Salary and Renumeration Commission (SRC) which states that a teacher can only be paid according to the job he or she perform in school; the higher the work load, the higher the salary and the higher the grade.
He gave examples of principals in the national schools that perform more duties as compared to the principals in the extra county schools.
“A principal in National school has more students, more human resource who are under him and that Principal is on duty throughout the term as he or she is responsible for the running of the school.
“As TSC, we will pay him more salary compared to a Principal in Extra-county School who despite of being on duty through the term, has less responsibility if you compare them with the Principal in National school,”said Mugele.
He said before 2017, the highest grade was Job Group R which was the Job Group for the Chief Principal in a National School but was that during the conversion of the grading system the Job Group R & G were merged and converted to D5.
He said Job Group M&N were merged and converted to D3 for principals in Sub-county schools, Deputy Principals of National Schools and Deputy Principals of Extra County Schools.
Mugele said in the newly grading system of deputy principals are paid a higher salary than Heads of Department and Head of Department are paid more than classroom teachers.
The Director who was speaking at Kunste Hotel in Nakuru City during the Kakamega County KESSHA Conference, encouraged every teacher to apply for any promotion that will be advertised by TSC, saying the commission will only consider the teachers who show interest by applying for the positions advertised.
While commenting about issues raised by KESSHA Chairperson concerning the politicians interfering with teachers recruitment exercise, he said that political leaders are state officers who cannot be wished away but as a commission, they are conducting their duties in accordance with the law.
Mugele said even if delocalization has been stopped there are some parts of Kenya with few teachers and the TSC will transfer teachers to those parts of the country to enable Kenyan children to get education as he said that teachers as civil servants can serve in any part of Kenya.
“Delocalization has been stopped but you should be aware that not every region have equivalent number of teachers to teach in the school, there are some villages in Kenya that every home have a teachers on the other hand there are some locations that have only one teachers,the children in the schools in those location must be taught, known as teachers be ready to be posted in any part of Kenya”,said Mugele.
The Regional Director warned Principals on concentrating too much on administrative duties and refused to attend lessons, he reminded the Principals that they are teachers and they should attend lessons to give examples to other teachers.
“Many Principals do not want to attend class to teach students,they should be aware that apart from performing administrative duties in the school they should teach students in class to show good examples to teachers’ ‘,said Mugele.
Mugele also added that in order to address challenges of understaffing in most of the schools in Western Region,the Commission will start by removing teachers from schools with surplus teachers in schools with shortage of teachers“,said TSC Director.
“I have instructed the TSC County Directors in all Counties of Western Region to remove all teachers in schools with a surplus of teachers and post them to schools with shortage of teachers”,said Mugele.
He said that the Commission will use the data in the TSC office to identify schools with a surplus of teachers.
He gives an example of a school in Butere which has a surplus of eight teachers and another school in another Sub-county which has two teachers.
The Director also urged school principals to ensure they fill important documents themselves and they should stop delegating critical roles to teachers like filling the data management system, because they are responsible for the important information.
By Peter Otuoro
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