Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) has dismissed the setting up of a committee to validate the number of teachers to be promoted.
Kuppet Secretary General Akello Misori
This follows a deal between Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) to form a nine-member committee to reconcile the number of those who should be promoted.
After a meeting between Knut and TSC, it was resolved that five officials from the employer and four from the union would start the verification process today.
But Kuppet claimed there is already a committee set within TSC Act 2012 mandated to validate teachers supposed to be promoted.
Requested Sh4 billion
Kuppet Secretary General Akello Misori said TSC has failed in its mandate to have a functional data of teachers who have qualified for promotion.
“TSC has not been proactive. After we signed the agreement last year during the strike, promotion of teachers was part of it,” said Misori.
Addressing the Press at the union headquarters in Nairobi yesterday, Misori claimed that a majority of teachers have stagnated in job group L and should have been promoted by last year.
He said TSC requested Sh4 billion to effect the promotions but only Sh600 million was released.
With Knut having called on teachers to send their qualifications to all its branches, Kuppet said there are no qualified human resource personnel to authenticate the academic papers.
“Validating and authenticating academic papers for teachers should be done by the employer,” he added.
The union, however, acknowledged that there was goodwill from the Government to promote the teachers but it claimed that TSC is not doing enough to remove the bottleneck that has hindered the process.
Kuppet alleged that it has 10,000 members with Masters and should at least get an additional 40 per cent to their current salary noting that promotion should be done on merit.
Kuppet Chair Omboko Milemba claimed there may be ghost teachers on the Government payroll and wanted the teachers’ credentials verified before they are promoted.
Meanwhile, Kuppet has called for consultation among education stakeholders before effecting transfer of school heads to avoid conflicts.
By RAWLINGS OTIENO and ROSELYNE OBALA, The Standard
