Field officers of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) have appealed to their employer to consider them for automatic promotion following the recent upgrading of their counterparts at the Ministry of Education (MoE).
In January this year, MoE moved Sub-County Directors of Education (SCDEs) from Job Group ‘P’ to ‘R’ and County Directors of Education (CDEs) as well as Regional Directors of Education to Job Group ‘S’. The rest of its staff were also moved to higher job groups.
Several of those promoted were happy and thanked the Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu for rewarding them.
“Morale is very high in the field. The MoE has invested in the field officers with offices and means of transport and now the promotion is another icing on the cake,” said one CDE who spoke to Education News in confidence.
The automatic promotion of the officers has created a huge disparity between those serving under TSC and their MoE counterparts.
TSC officers who are serving as Sub-County Directors are at Job Group ‘N’ or ‘P’ while County Directors and Regional Directors are at Job Group ‘R’.
It is understood that the promotions awarded to the MoE staff was occasioned by a circular issued by the Public Service Commission (PSC) to various government departments to promote officers as a solution to succession management gaps within the service.
PSC had indicated that officers at Job Group ‘P’ and above were approaching retirement and immediate successors were not available due to stagnation in the middle level grades.
TSC officers who spoke to Education News lamented that their employer was not fighting for them, and that it was unfair to have officers working for the same government and performing similar roles but earn different salaries.
They took issue with MoE officers in all sub-counties being given vehicles recently to perform their duties, while TSC officers operate on the bare minimum of resources.
They also questioned why TSC has put them on contracts of five years while the MoE officers are on permanent and pensionable terms.
An officer who chose anonymity called for the immediate takeover of TSC by the MoE as it was the case before.
The officers also poured cold water on interviews done severally for Sub-County Directors under the guise of re-designation yet very few were promoted to the next grades.
“We do not understand why our employer is tossing us around by calling us for interviews from time to time but nothing comes out of it. We only hear of certain individuals promoted without even attending interviews,” said one of the field officers.
In recent weeks, MoE and TSC have engaged in turf wars over control of teachers and other aspects of education.
The latest of these relates to the implementation of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER), which is to be tabled before parliament. TSC has rejected it in totality.
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