- TSC has awarded its secretariat staff pay increments of up to KSh55,000 while giving Curriculum Support Officers a raise of just KSh1,000, sparking calls for SRC to fairly evaluate their roles.
- Acting TSC CEO Eveleen Mitei has told the Senate Education Committee that the commission has finalised new career progression guidelines for CSOs and is awaiting feedback from SRC.
- The disparity has renewed scrutiny of how CSOs have been classified within the TSC structure, despite forming the fulcrum of Competency-Based Education implementation.
Pressure is mounting on the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) to conduct a proper evaluation of the work done by Curriculum Support Officers (CSOs), after a recent pay review left the cadre with a raise many describe as humiliating compared to what their secretariat colleagues received.
Last month, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) awarded its secretariat staff pay increments ranging from KSh15,000 for the lowest cadre to KSh55,000 for subcounty directors. CSOs, by contrast, received an increment of just KSh1,000 before tax, a gap that has renewed calls for SRC to properly assess and reclassify their roles.
The pay gap
The disparity has drawn attention to how CSOs are treated within the TSC structure. In the commission’s organogram, CSOs are classified as field officers alongside secretariat staff, yet when it comes to job evaluation and pay, they are lumped together with teachers. Critics argue this inconsistency has left CSOs undervalued despite carrying out duties that go well beyond the classroom.
RELATED: CSOs: The forgotten soldiers of Kenya’s education system driving curriculum success
CSOs are responsible for supervising curriculum implementation, mentoring teachers, monitoring teaching standards, organising professional development programmes, collecting and analysing educational data, and advising school leaders on instructional improvement. Their work also involves extensive travel, performance monitoring, report writing, stakeholder engagement and the rollout of national education policies, duties that require professional expertise, accountability and significant commitment.
A comprehensive job evaluation by SRC would ensure remuneration reflects the actual scope of CSOs’ responsibilities and recognises the complexity and impact of their work in supporting quality education. It would also help improve staff motivation, job satisfaction and retention, promote fairness across comparable public service positions, and ultimately strengthen curriculum implementation and learning outcomes in schools.
TSC currently has 1,500 CSOs, both regular and those serving learners with special needs, spread across the country. Their advocates argue they form the fulcrum of Competency-Based Education (CBE) implementation, making it difficult to understand why SRC has been slow to correctly evaluate and advise TSC on how best to place them within the pay structure.
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Stuck between cadres
Under the current career progression guidelines (CPG), adopted in 2019, CSOs enter service at job group C5 and can rise to D3. However, the guidelines were not implemented immediately after adoption, leaving many CSOs stagnating at C5 for extended periods. Those who were horizontally promoted into headship positions have been among the hardest hit by this stagnation.
A proposed new CPG, which many CSOs are hoping will be implemented urgently, would place them at three levels: T3, T2 and T1, equivalent to job groups D3, D4 and D5.
Appearing before the Senate Education Committee last week, acting TSC CEO Eveleen Mitei said the commission had completed work on the new career progression guidelines for both teachers and CSOs and was now awaiting feedback from SRC on their implementation. Until that feedback is received and acted upon, CSOs and their supporters say the current pay disparity will remain a sore point in an otherwise critical arm of Kenya’s education system.
By Meshack Cheres
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