The adoption of this year’s budget will see teachers getting higher salaries this month as the proposed allocation of KSh364.910 billion to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will partly go to salary raises.
If Parliament approves the education budget as currently proposed, then confirmation of 26,000 interns to permanent and pensionable (PnP) terms will be done at the end of this month. This however hangs in the balance pending the approval of Parliament following plans to do serious budget cuts, a matter occasioned by protests by Gen Z.
If the National Assembly gives the nod to the 2024/2025 Financial Year (FY) budget estimates, besides the planned promotions of teachers, the second phase of the 2021/2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with an enhanced basic salaries and house allowances will be implemented.
The revelations come at a time learning in Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) in some parts of the country has been hampered by pockets of protests by intern teachers demanding employment on PnP terms in line with the Employment and Labour Relations Court (ELRC) ruling that rendered internship illegal.
Appearing before the National Assembly Budget and Appropriation Committee which is chaired by Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro, the chairperson of the Education Committee and Tinderet MP Julius Melly stated that TSC will convert the employment terms of 26,000 intern teachers to permanent and pensionable in July at a cost of Ksh8.3 billion instead of January 2025 as earlier planned by the commission.
However, it is not clear whether the remaining 20,000 interns who were recruited mid last year will be confirmed through a supplementary budget in January 2025 or wait for the 2025/2026 budget cycle.
The promotion of teachers will cost the government 1 billion shillings, the implementation of the CBC Ksh13billion, and another Ksh4.68 billion will go to recruitment of an additional 20,000 interns.
Other allocations are Secondary Education Quality Improvement Project (SEQIP) with an allocation of Ksh200 million, Kenya Primary Education Equity in Learning Programme (KPEELP) Project Ksh204 million, and retooling of Junior School teachers on CBC and Competency-Based Assessment (CBA) at Ksh1.3 billion. SEQIP is coming to an end in December this year.
Intern pay
Since 2019, the commission has been engaging teachers on an annual paid internship programme, with those deployed to primary schools being entitled to a monthly stipend of Ksh15,000 while those attached to secondary and JSS getting Ksh20,000.
The latest development implies that these intern teachers, majority of whom are in JSS, will from July this year start receiving higher salaries and enhanced allowances.
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After confirmation, their basic salaries will range between Ksh23,830 on the minimum for those in primary school and Ksh38,286 for the case of JSS teachers, considering also that they will benefit in the second phase of the CBA implementation.
The commission has so far recruited a total of 54,300 teachers on internship since 2019, but the exact number of those converted to PnP terms cannot be ascertained.
According to data released by the TSC during the 2019/2020 FY, the commission recruited a total of 10,300 intern teachers, 12,000 in the 2020/2021 FY, 6,000 in 2021/2022, and 26,000 in 2022/2023, the highest number since the inception of the policy.
In July 2023, the commission recruited a total of 20,000 intern teachers for 2023/2024 FY, sending 18,000 to JSS and 2,000 to primary schools to support the implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
CBA implementation
The allocation of Ksh13 billion for the implementation of the second phase of the 2021-2025 CBA in the budget estimates implies that a good number of teachers will get a raise in salary.
TSC and the three major teacher unions; KNUT, KUPPET and Kenya Union of Special Needs Education Teachers (KUSNET), signed a new pay agreement on August 28, 2023 to amend the 2021-2025 CBA, which saw teachers’ salaries increased by up to 9.5 per cent and backdated to July 1, 2023 payable in two financial years 2023/2024 and 2024/2025.
The lower cadre teachers at Grade B5 TSC-Scale 5, whose basic salary increased on the minimum from Ksh21,756 to Ksh22,793 and from Ksh27,195 to Ksh28,491 on the maximum in the current FY, will from July 1, 2024 get a salary of Ksh23,830 on the lower side and Ksh29,787 on the higher in the 2024/2025 FY.
This will also see teachers, especially those in rural areas, getting higher house allowances beginning July1, 2024. Those in Grade D4 (Senior Principal) will receive a whopping Ksh6,934 increase from Ksh18,066 to Ksh25,000 while those in Grade B5 will get no increase.
The House Allowance rates for Clusters 1, 2 and 3 have been retained. However, Cluster 4 rates were reviewed to be implemented in two phases. The first phase was factored in the teachers’ August payroll with arrears backdated to July 1, 2023. The Second Phase will be paid on July 1, 2024.
TSC categorized House Allowances into Four Clusters, with Cluster 1 consisting of Nairobi City, Cluster 2 covering Mombasa, Kisumu and Nakuru cities, Nyeri, Eldoret, Thika, Kisii, Malindi, and Kitale municipalities, and Cluster 3 being other former municipalities.
Cluster 4 consists of all other areas where 87 per cent of the public teaching service falls (mainly in rural areas).
During the first phase implemented in the current FY, a review of Cluster 4 House Allowance saw teachers in Grades C3 to C4 and those in Grades D1 to D5 earn an increase by above Ksh1,000 backdated to July 1, 2023.
Those in grades B5, C1, C2 and C5 received less than Ksh1,000 increase in House Allowance in the first phase of the implementation.
Promotions
The Ksh1 billion allocation is a sigh of relief for those teachers who missed out on the recent promotions, majority of whom have stagnated in one job group and acted for long.
A report by the commission reveals that out of the 28,681 teachers who applied for promotion last year, only 11,231 were successful; implying that about 17,450 will wait until the next round of promotions, notably during the 2024/2025 FY.
Recently, the commission promoted a total 36,504. The commission targets to complete the process of updating the promotion of the teachers in its payroll by June 15, 2024; with a total of 2,500 files being worked on daily.
The commission disclosed that 80 per cent of the promoted teachers through Advert No. 46/2023 to 69/2023 to various grades ranging from C2 to D5 were retained in their current stations.
Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) has earlier on asked the government through the National Treasury to allocate more funds for promotion of stagnated teachers, with KUPPET Busia Executive Secretary Moffats Okisai stating that the recent promotion of 36,505 teachers was a parody since those teachers who had stagnated and acted as deputies for a long time were left out.
“We want to appeal to the government to at least in the next budget cycle, they put more money for promotion of teachers because the very needy cases who have really stagnated were not considered in the recent promotions done by the employer, TSC,” said Okisai.
According to Okisai, the promotion score guide for the commission, which was used to rate the teachers during the promotional interviews, highly favoured those who had acted for long and that most of them were hoping to be promoted and confirmed to new grades, but it did not happen.
“According to TSC marking, most of them were meeting the requirement. If somebody had acted, there were marks allocated, so those who had acted for long were sure of promotion. To our surprise, such cases were just left out!” stated Okisai.
However, the approved 2024 Budget Policy Statement indicates the commission’s allocation as Ksh369.943 billion, which is an overall reduction of Ksh5.033 billion; that is Ksh5 billion reduction in recurrent expenditure and Ksh33 million reduction in development expenditure.
By Hezron Roy
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