By Education News Team
Unverified and misleading data entered in the Integrated Personnel Payroll Database (IPPD) by Digit Heads at Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has led the Commission to either underpay or overpay salaries for 630 teachers, Education News has exclusively learnt.
Digit Heads in the Human Resource Management Department for reason(s) yet to be established caused the entering into IPPD system erroneous incremental months for teachers who were upgraded on July 1st, 2017.
In essence, out of about 10,000 teachers who were upgraded in 2017, the incremental month of 630 teachers were amended which resulted to this lot either being under or overpaid salaries as they were not granted annual increments appropriately.
The state of affairs has, indeed placed the Commission in an awkward and embarrassing situation days to the scheduled August 21st, 2018 make-or-break meeting between teachers’ unions and TSC to discuss the over 30,0000 pending promotion cases.
In an Internal Memo (TSC/IPPD/OM/50/VOL.III/141) addressed to all Digit Heads – Human Resource Management dated July 30th, 2018, an Assistant Director – IPPD, J Ndege has requested the personal files of the affected teachers to be retrieved so as to rectify the error before the August 2018 payroll is worked on.
States Ndege in the Internal Memo: “We refer to the memo Ref: TSC/HRM/OM/I/VOL.I/24) dated October 12th, 2017 on award of annual increment for cadres upgraded from July 1st, 2017. However, in the course of payroll analysis on conversion, it was established that 630 teachers who were upgraded in 2017 had their incremental month and date of 1st appointment changed from July 1st, 2017.
“The amendment of incremental month has led to under or overpayment of these teachers as they were not granted annual increments appropriately. We request for requisition of the personal files of these teachers to rectify the error before August 2018 payroll is generated.
The Commissionfailure to address teacher promotion appropriately can be traced back to 2014 when TSC failed to implement the KNUT/TSC Joint Technical Committeerecommendations which had identified deserving cases, and had also outlined the procedures to be followed in effecting the promotions.
For quite a while now, there has been an imminent clash between TSC and teachers’ unions over delayed promotions of over 30,000 teachers; this is in addition of teachers now approach the sunset of their career and who have been side-lined.
The Commission has always shifted the blame to the NationalTreasury for failing to allocate adequate funds for teacher promotion in the subsequent TSC financial estimates, namely 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017, 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 Fiscal Years.
In the 2014/2015 Financial Year, the Commission had requested some Shs6.6 billion to promote all teachers once the vetting exercise was completed. Among the tutors demanding upgrading, and who will be at the centre of discussion during the scheduled August 21st, 2018 meeting between TSC and teachers’ unions are those who had gone back to the lecture halls in various institutions of higher learning to further their education with the hope of being promoted.
In the 2015/2016 TSC had further indicated that the Commission now wanted another Sh3.6 billion to address all pending cases of promotion, a suggestion the Parliamentary Committee on Allocation and Appropriation rubbished claiming there were no additional funds for the Commission. At the time, the Commission said it had been allocated only Shs600 million for promotion of teachers which had proved to be a drop in the ocean.
The Commission had initially indicated that the promotions would be strictly effected under the existing three Schemes of Service, namely Non-graduate Teachers, Graduate Teachers and Technical Teachers/Lecturers.
These Schemes of Service have now been phased out, and it is not clear which system the Commission would use to upgrading the pending cases as the earlier interviews/vetting were based on the old systems.
In a Circular (No:7/2018) dated May 2nd, 2018, TSC Chief Executive indicated that the Commission had developed Career Progress Guidelines for the Teaching Service which became operational on November 8th, 2017.
The Guidelines provide for policies and procedures that have standardized teachers’ professional development. “The new grading structure has taken into account the Job Evaluation Report by Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC). The Guidelines provide all basic requirements for career progression, training and promotion of teachers. The Guidelines effectively replaces the three Schemes of Service,” states Dr. Macharia.
