By Roy Hezron
The government first advertised two positions out of the seven vacancies for the commissioners in the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to ensure standardization of retirement date of commissioners.
The standardization will ensure that there is no luck of quorum in the commission in future as is the position now.
Speaking in the National Assembly while seconding special motion to consider the nominees for appointment as Chairperson and Member of TSC, Nyeri Town MP Wambugu Ngunjiri said quorum issues will now be resolved.
Ngunjiri who is the Vice-Chairperson of Education and Research Committee they were informed by both TSC and the Public Service Commission that all commissioners term will in future expire in a standard way.
TSC had only two commissioners since March after five Commissioners retired, making it difficult for the commission to carry out its mandate key being initiating discussions of the teachers Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) because the current one will end in June.
Mbage Njuguna Ng’ang’a and Leila Abdi Ali, were appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta in May 2020 to represent Central and North Eastern regions respectively.
Their recruitment followed the retirement of Commissioners Cleophas Tirop (Rift Valley), Salome Gichura (Central) and Saadia Abdi Kontoma (North Eastern) in 2019 after the end of their six-year terms.
Uhuru appointed Dr. Jamleck Muturi John as the Chairperson of the Commission to replace Lydia Nzomo who was appointed in 2014 and retired November last year.
He also appointed Timon Alfred Otieno Oyucho as a member of the Commission to represent the Nyanza region.
Those two and the Commissioner representing the Eastern region had been appointed earlier, means the commission has attained a minimum quorum to effectively carry out its activities.
The president will now constitute another selection panel to fill the positions vacated by Beatrice Adu, Mbarak Twahir, Kinoti Imanyara, Tache Gollo and Albert Ekirapa whose terms ended on March 19 since they were appointed in 2015.
The remaining five vacant positions represent Rift Valley, Western, Nairobi and Cost since Eastern, Central, North Eastern and Nyanza already has representatives.
Should the remaining five positions be filled this year, the terms of seven commissioners who include the five and Dr. Muturi and Oyucho will expire between May and June 2027 while the two appointed earlier will expire between May and June 2026.
Dr. Nzomo and Dr. Muturi are the first chairpersons to be recruited competitively since the promulgation of the new Constitution in 2010.
The commission was fully constituted in March 2015 following the recruitment and appointment of the chairperson and commissioners, a process that began in October 2012.
Although the 2010 Constitution is silent on the specifics of the tenure of the TSC commissioners, the Teachers Service Commission Act 2012 affirms that they will serve a fixed 6-year term.
