Education stakeholders in the country have raised a number of proposals and suggestions to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) for consideration before the roll-out of the controversial Teacher Professional Development (TPD).
This is after the Commission held various regional stakeholders engagements across the country this month in a bid to gather views on TPD’s gaps, design, content, delivery modes, duration, assessment, monitoring, funding, and implementation challenges; with forums bringing together teacher associations, unions, scholars, and educators.
During regional stakeholders’ engagement in Western region, Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) Busia Executive Secretary Moffats Okisai noted that it’s the responsibility of the employer to fund any training introduced for its employees to improve their skills and knowledge.
He added that TPD training does not attract any training allowance, maintaining that there is a serious conflict of interest in TSC being an employer or a professional regulator. He observed that TPD should empower teachers to make learning lifelong and not lifelong learning spanning 30 years.
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“This is modern-day slavery in the teaching profession. The TPD program should be conducted during the holiday. It’ll be a big treat to the family unit of teachers in addition to a serious hindrance to the professional mobility of teachers who aspire to higher learning,” said Okisai.
He added that TPD is silently entrenching contract teaching in the profession since failure to pass any module assessment means a teacher’s teaching license or certificate won’t be renewed, arguing that the program is not globally recognized.
“After 30 years of learning from Modules 1 to 6, what does a teacher become? TPD needs to have been integrated into the ongoing retooling of CBE. This will help to avoid duplication of effort and waste of public resources. It’s our prayer that these concerns and others not captured are urgently addressed before the rollout of TPD. Otherwise, it will attract industrial action and reaction,” warned Okisai.
Teachers and stakeholders from the Kenya’s coast region, on the other hand, want the commission to be mindful of teachers’ mental well-being, stating that the program should not be made mandatory and suggesting that those teachers remaining with five years to go on retirement should be exempted from the program.
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Furthermore, they called on the Commission to ensure that theC are developed by identifying both gaps in TPAD and emerging issues, the cost of training be borne by the employer, and a professional body be created to develop modules, train teachers, and provide certification in collaboration with Ministry of Education (MoE) in order to avoid conflict of interest.
The stakeholders also want the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation to be participatory by involving unions and individuals with a background in education.
They stated that certification at any level should never be used to determine job progression, and also take into consideration the needs of PWD and special needs.
Launched in September 2021, TPD comprises seven modules, each with five chapters, aligned with seven Kenya Professional Teaching Standards (KEPTS), requiring teachers to pay KSh 6,000 annually.
This would have required teachers to spend a total of KSh 30,000 to complete one module over five years and KSh 180,000 for all six modules over three decades.
By Hezron Roy
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