By Augustine Oduor
Up to 60,000 teachers could benefit
from Sh6.8 billion additional funding to the Teachers Service
Commission (TSC). The teachers' employer requested the amount from
the National Treasury as part of the supplementary budget that is
before the National Assembly for approval. Yesterday, the House
Education Committee chairperson Sabina Chege said her team had pushed
for the allocation, part of which was for teachers' promotions.
"Several teachers have not been promoted and it was becoming a
crisis. More teachers also had to be recruited and so the committee
was wise enough to push for this," Ms Chege said. A brief by TSC
says Sh2 billion was allocated to promotion of teachers and a similar
amount to recruitment of 5,000 teachers for 10 months. The summary of
revised estimates says the approved estimates under the wages and
salary contributions was Sh179.9 billion. This was, however, revised
to Sh186.7 billion, translating to an additional Sh6.8 billion. READ
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week The supplementary budget covers the remaining days of the
2015-16 financial year. It was, however, not immediately clear from
TSC which groups were targeted under the allocation. But Kenya Union
of Post Primary Education Teachers Secretary General Akelo Misori
explained that more that 60,000 teachers were due for promotion. Mr
Misori said under Job Group L and M alone, thousands had not been
moved up the ranks for years. Promotions to Job Group L are automatic
but those to Job Group M are based on interviews. Job groups J, K and
L fall under common cadre promotions. The Standard established that
interviews for job groups P, Q and R are ongoing. Treasury Cabinet
Secretary Henry Rotich said teacher recruitment in primary and
secondary schools was lagging behind by nearly 13,000. He said TSC
had planned to hire 10,000 secondary school teachers and 9,159 for
the primary level in its initial budget. "However, only 3,662
and 2,338 have been recruited," he said.
A note by TSC said there was no
reduction in the number of teachers to be recruited as a result of
the supplementary estimates but rather the realignment of the target
with the actual funds that were provided for the exercise. The
document further said some Sh1.5 billion would be spent on the 52,000
retired teachers, as a fraction of the Sh42 billion awarded by a
Nakuru court in December. The first phase of the retired teachers'
payment shall be effected before June 30 when the financial year
closes. Some Sh4.3 billion will cater for carry-over or pending bills
to third parties from the 2014/2015 financial year. Some Sh813
million was set aside for recruitment of contract teachers and
another Sh261 million will go towards adjustment of salaries and
allowances to the actual expenditure based on trend.
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