By Azael Masese
Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers (KUPPET) Nairobi County branch has decried alleged favoritism in teacher promotions in the region.
The union has said a good number of teachers stagnate in one job group for too long.
Branch Executive Secretary Moses Owiti termed this as demotivating to teachers and is likely to impact negatively on the teachers’ commitment to improve learning outcomes.
“Teacher promotions in Nairobi are given piece meal and it depends on whom you know,” he told Education News.
While teachers approaching 45 years in other regions are in job group P, he claimed those in Nairobi are languishing in job group L and the lucky ones are in group M.
In some cases, he said a mere teacher is promoted to a higher job group compared to a principal and this is likely to create a bad working relationship between the pair.
However, he applauded the recent development in which a number of deputy principals have been promoted to become school heads outside the region. Owiti observed: “It just started this term and has never been seen before and this is encouraging because we want teachers to grow since you cannot be a deputy forever.”
Besides, posting of young teachers started from 2010 compared to the past when it was extremely difficult to find them teaching in some of the schools in the capital city.
Another interesting observation is that there are more female teachers in the county compared to male teachers.
This, he explained, can partly be explained by those civil servants and the private sector that use all means possible to have their spouses work near them.
