The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has come out in defense of its latest promotion exercise, confirming that 34,016 teachers are set to move up the ranks after the National Treasury released Sh2 billion to fund the process.
According to TSC, the promotions form part of a continuing effort to give teachers a clearer path for career growth, with experience, performance and years of service all factored into the decision-making.
TSC says the exercise followed its established policies and guidelines from start to finish, pushing back against suggestions that the process was skewed or lacking in openness.
Every eligible teacher, the Commission insists, was considered against the same criteria, with final outcomes shaped by how many vacancies were actually available.
The Sh2 billion set aside will go towards promoting teachers across primary, junior secondary and secondary schools, with those who made the cut moving into higher job grades, and, with that, better pay and benefits.
The announcement follows weeks of unease from teachers’ unions and various education stakeholders; some of whom had raised questions about how the process was run and called for it to be more transparent and fairly spread across the country’s regions.
TSC maintains that merit, not favouritism, determined who got promoted, but acknowledged a harder truth: the money available simply wasn’t enough to cover everyone who qualified.
The Commission has asked teachers who missed out this time to hold on, promising that further promotion cycles will follow as more funding becomes available.
For their part, education stakeholders have largely welcomed the extra funding, arguing that the promotions should lift morale among teachers and, in turn, translate into better service delivery in classrooms. Even so, many are pushing the government to commit more money to future rounds so that a larger pool of teachers can move up the career ladder.
This latest round of promotions fits into the government’s wider push to improve conditions for teachers, part of an effort to keep schools staffed with motivated professionals capable of delivering quality education.
Teachers who made the list can expect to receive their appointment letters from TSC before officially taking up their new grades, in line with the Commission’s usual procedures.
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