The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has advertised 36,275 positions for teachers seeking promotion, just a week after announcing that over 14,000 others had been promoted.
The vast majority of the positions advertised by the commission will be for teachers in the lower cadres, unlike the previous ones that were mainly for teachers in administrative positions.
The highest number of vacancies will be for Senior Master IV in a regular secondary school, with 12,716 vacancies to be filled. This is followed by Senior Teacher II vacancies for regular primary schools.
Last week, many teachers were left disappointed after failing to secure the promotion posts that TSC had been advertising since December last year. The commission had to re-advertise the vacancies three times, citing a lack of qualified applicants.
The advertised promotions will be processed in accordance with the career progression guidelines used by the commissions.
“Interested candidates who meet the required qualifications should submit their applications online through the TSC portal to be received no later than September 8, 2023. Manual applications will not be considered,” said TSC CEO Nancy Macharia in a notice.
Teachers’ unions have blamed the TSC for stagnating their members’ careers, while the commission has blamed the national government for failing to allocate funds for promotions. In the current budget, the commission was allocated Sh1 billion, although it had requested Sh2.2 billion.
In the current advertisement, there are 1,049 vacancies for promotion to the level of head teacher and 1,930 more for deputy head teacher in regular primary schools and 1,928 vacancies for Secondary Teacher I in a regular school. This points to a glaring shortage of administrators in public primary schools, many of which are run by teachers in acting capacities.
According to Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) chairperson Omboko Milemba, teachers are not applying for promotions because they lack the qualifications.
“There are thousands of secondary school teachers who have stagnated at C3 and C4 (formerly L and M) for over 10 years and many of them are even close to retirement. You have to be in D2 and D1 to qualify for a deputy head post. It is a circus and a joke. It’s an unfair practice and it really hurts,” he said in an earlier interview.
A report by Kuppet to the National Assembly’s education committee in February put the number of secondary school teachers eligible for promotion but not promoted at 46,550. The union said the number of those stuck at C3 for more than five years was 24,082.
“We are pleased that more than 14,000 teachers have been promoted. But we were expecting more than 100,000 teachers to be promoted. This promotion is a drop in the ocean, it is only 1 per cent,” said Kenya National Union of Teachers Mombasa branch secretary Dan Aloo last week in reaction to the latest promotions.
