The challenges they encounter while discharging their co-function of teacher management at sub-counties has reduced them to beggars and compromised their decisions in crucial matters affecting those they supervise since nobody cares to listen to them.
By Education News Reporter
The paradox of Teachers Service Commission (TSC) officers at the sub-county level having to supervise teachers who are higher in the salary scale has come to the fore, raising concerns of inequitable promotions in the service that has kept them in one Job Group (JG) for decades.
This has surfaced at a time TSC Chairman Dr. Jamleck Muturi is leading a team of commissioners around the country on a fact-finding mission. They aim to collect views on everything about teachers, secretariat staff work environment, workability of policies and what needs to be reviewed in the teaching service in a bid to steer up service re-engineering.
And as the country joins the world in celebrating World Teachers’ Day, there is little that the TSC Sub-county Directors (SCD) can celebrate as they have been consigned into the bins of history as one group trapped in the peripheral corners of active memory.
Although they carry out their duties with courage and discipline, many go through challenges as ears are turned deaf on their plight, and now they have banked their hopes on Dr. Muturi entourage to save them.
The Commission has a total of 348 SCDs; 332 deployed to head sub-county offices tasked with the crucial role of teacher management, and the remaining being stationed at the Commission headquarters in Nairobi.
In an anonymous letter addressed to the TSC Chairman and seen by Education News on the challenges faced by the SCDs, some have stagnated in the same job group for over 12 years.
Every year, they sit in a panel that oversees teachers’ growth to higher ranks. It is even more disheartening when they are expected to appraise principals who are several job groups above them.
In addition, they are one cadre of officers whose job groups (JG) are varied, earn different salaries, yet all have the same duties and responsibilities.
They are former staffing officers, most of whom joined the Commission horizontally at JG ‘N’, and as part of their duty, they periodically witness teachers progressing from JG ‘M’ to ‘R’.
At one point in 2014, they were subjected to a suitability interviews for re-designation as sub-county directors, which came without a grade change.
Those who did not make the cut became Teacher Management Officers (TMOs) and were deployed to county offices, to be later reposted to the sub-counties owing to the unforeseen shortages.
To muddle the matter deeper, the Commission deployed 47 Principal Teacher Management Officers (TMOs) to various parts of the country at sub-county level after advertising between January and February 2021.
Incidentally, the TMOs were to prepare advertisements for posts which were performed by SCDs. Other roles were to facilitate the processing of teacher registration, implementation of policies and guidelines related to teacher management functions, and identifying vacant posts as per the establishment in all public learning institutions.
The move created fear in various SCDs who saw the parallel layer of teacher management as confusing their roles.
“They are performing duties of SCD and they are in the same JG as some of us. So what we do not know is the difference between a TMO and a SCD. What distinguishes a TMO from a SCD?” wondered one SCD then.
What is intriguing is that there are three sets of officials manning the sub-counties: the SCD, TMO and Assistant Deputy Directors (ADDs) – all performing similar tasks but earning differently.
No stationary, airtime
The officers also allege they are not given stationery, which is very critical to their routine teacher management roles.
According to the officers, they don’t have printing paper, envelopes, pens, staplers, folders, among other key office accessories.
One dismal moment was when they were asked in 2019 to embark on an exercise to re-designate all teachers. They were supplied with the names per grade and the templates for each grade.
They were then given a timeline to type and sign six copies per teacher, meaning they needed at least ten reams of paper and a toner with zero facilitation.
It was not an oversight, as the same was repeated in September 2021, when they were given the list of the common cadre promotions to be processed at the sub-county level.
Every activity in line with their duty, like online registration of teachers, transfers, posting, entry and exit, Teacher Management Information System (TMIS), and Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development (TPAD), is not facilitated, forcing them to use their own resources.
The have borne the brunt of the efficiency that has come with the use of online portals, considering that over three quarters of the sub-county schools are in rural areas with no Wi-Fi connectivity.
Initially, the Commission used to factor airtime on their payslips. It was removed in 2016 without any explanation, to be followed immediately by the withdrawal of airtime cards.
This is in the face of the indispensable communication in the field. A teacher recruitment exercise alone, for example, is expensive. To text applicants in a shortlist of 2,000 will require above that amount at the market rates.
Disciplinary cases
Further, the devolved function of discipline has emerged as another headache.
Whereas some counties pay lunch if an SCD investigates a case and comes up with a report, others are silent about it. Even travel expenses to attend cases in the county offices are not met.
Understaffing
The sub-county office comprises of the SCD, the Human Resource Officer (HRO), and one clerk.
With the amount of work to be done, they are bound to carry out their monumental tasks without either support staff or secretary.
The officers are classified at TSC Scale 10 and they are generally responsible for the provision of leadership in the implementation of strategies and structures regarding teacher management at the sub-county.
For one to be promoted and be appointed to this position, you must have served: satisfactorily in the grade of Chief Teacher Management Officer or a comparable position, and at TSC Scale ‘9’ for a minimum period of three years or a comparable position.
The applicant must have also rated satisfactorily in performance appraisal, attended a senior management course, and met the requirements of chapter 6 of the Constitution.
