By Roy Hezron
Teachers’ serving in hardship areas will continue receiving their hardship allowances since no area has been removed and the areas listed in the 2021-2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) are only the areas Teachers Service Commission (TSC) identified as hard to staff despite them being hardship areas.
Officials of Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) and Kenya Union of Special Needs Education Teachers (KUSNET) told Education News most recently that TSC has no mandate to remove or add any area in the hardship list, and what was captured in the recently signed CBA are just areas the Commission identified as hard to staff and only affect those holding administrative positions.
KNUT Secretary General Collins Oyuu clarified that the areas listed in the recently signed CBA are only hard to staff despite them being hardship areas and should not be interpreted as new hardship areas.
He reiterated that what the TSC has done is to list the hard to staff areas and maintained that they are putting administrators on acting capacity regardless of their grade, who will continue to serve in those administrative positions in the hard to staff areas until they attain their respective grades for confirmation.
“Those areas are hardship but hard to staff, meaning, even positions of Headtechers and Deputies nobody is ready to be there, and those who are there are not even qualified for those positions in terms of what we have in the CBA,” said Oyuu.
He added: “They are promoted to act in those positions because those areas are hard to staff and nobody is willing to go there.”
Oyuu added that what TSC is looking at is the interest an individual teacher has in line with serving under acting capacity of administration in those areas prior to ones grade until when the teacher attains the full grade of administrator for full confirmations of the position the teacher was acting before.
He reiterated that the hardship allowances are still there for teachers serving in those areas, and Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has no mandate whatsoever to gazette or de-gazette a hardship area since that mandate has been given to the Public Service Commission, Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National government and Salaries and Remuneration Commission.
His sentiments were echoed by his KUSNET counterpart James Torome who told Education News that teachers should not push for things which are not there since the areas listed in the 2021-2025 CBA only refers to administrators who are serving in the hard to staff areas and who have not qualified to hold those positions.
“That clause was talking of administrators who are serving in Arid and Semi-Arid Land (ASAL) and hard to staff areas and not qualified to hold the administrative positions. So they are going to continue holding those positions until the time they will qualify and continue serving in those stations,” stated Torome.
Torome added that the areas listed in the CBA should not be taken as the new hardship areas since the hardship areas were not reviewed and teachers continue getting their hardship allowances.
KUPPET Deputy Secretary General Moses Nthurima also maintained that the TSC has no powers to remove or add any area from the list of hardship area, since that mandate has been given to different government Ministries.
According to the 2021-2025 CBA, TSC identified 18 areas of which despite them being classified as ASAL (hardship) areas they are also hard to staff.
“The employer shall endeavor to promote members serving in ASAL and hard to staff areas holding administrative positions progressively until they attain grades that are commensurate to their respective positions. Meanwhile, they shall be retained in their current stations/areas until attainment of the substantive grades,” reads the CBA in part.
The areas are Garissa, Isiolo, Kwale, Lamu, Mandera, Marsabit, Samburu, Tana-River, Taita-Taveta, Turkana, Wajir and West-Pokot Counties.
Others are Baringo North, Tiaty East and West, and Marigat sub-counties in Baringo County; Mashuuru, Loitoktok and Kajiado West sub-counties in Kajiado County; Suba and Mbita sub-counties in Homa-Bay County; Magarini and Ganze sub-counties in Kilifi County; Mumoni, Mutito North and Tseikuru Sub-counties in Kitui County; and Narok South and North sub-counties in Narok County.
Some of these areas are characterized by insecurity whereby non-local teachers are a major target while other areas have faced bandits attack and tribal clashes, a situation that has led to a good number of teachers shunning away from administrative positions of Senior Teachers and Masters, Deputy Headtechers and Principals, and Headtechers and Principals.
In February 2020 for instance, the Commission transferred all non-local teachers in Garissa after targeted terror attacks, after dropping its hard stance that it won’t transfer the teachers following targeted terror attacks in the North Eastern region.
This is after over 500 teachers from North Eastern in early February last year camped at the TSC headquarters in Nairobi seeking an audience with commission’s boss Dr. Nancy Macharia saying their lives were at risk.
The Commission in September this year advertised more than 1,200 promotional positions in the ASAL areas, with majority being Senior Master IV (178 posts), Senior Master III (105 posts), Senior Teacher II (299 posts), and Deputy Headtecher I (111 posts).
The new CBA further maintains that the hardship allowance will continue being paid to teachers assigned duties in designated (or gazetted) hardship areas.
According to the 2021-2025 CBA, besides the basic salary and other allowances, teachers serving in the hardship (ASAL) areas are entitled to a hardship allowance of between Sh 6, 600 on the lowest Grade which is B5 to Sh 38, 100 on the highest Grade which is D5.
