Teachers employed under the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) are set to receive higher salaries once a new pay structure takes effect sometime in July, 2021.
This comes after the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) disclosed in a report that the last job evaluation done on the teachers was unfair as it favored school heads while leaving out the other teachers.
According to the report, the input of other teachers besides the headteachers was undervalued which resulted in poor salaries. The new pay deal aims at recognizing the efforts made by these teachers in their line of duty.
“There were significant disparities in the compensation and career progression between the institutional administrators and classroom teachers in the teaching profession as the job evaluation results for 2016/2017 did not adequately cater for the remuneration of classroom teachers. This might be attributed to poor development of job descriptions in 2016,” reads the SRC report.
According to the current CBA, primary school headteachers and secondary school principals were moved to higher job grades in 2016. The primary school heads were automatically moved up to Grade D1, where they earn between Ksh 77,840 and 93,408.
Those with lower students’ populations were moved to Grade C5, earning between Ksh 62,272 and Ksh 77,840.
The primary school’s deputy headteachers on the other hand were moved up to Grade C4 and C5 where they earn between Ksg 52,308 and Ksh 65,385.
Primary school senior teachers were also moved up to Grade C2 and earn between Ksh 34,955 and 43,964.
As for Principals of national schools, they were moved to Grade D5 earning between Ksh 131,380 and Ksh 157,656. The pay for secondary school teachers was based on school categories.
With the new report, the remuneration of headteachers will no longer be based on the categories of schools, which has brought about administrative challenges in the appointment, deployment, and transfer of teachers.
“TSC’s administrative and contractual mandate to deploy and re-assign institutional administrators has been severely curtailed by the categorization,” reads the report.
The categorization of schools as national, extra-county, county, and sub-county is being phased out under Competence Based Curriculum(CBC). This is with an aim to favor career pathways of social sciences, arts, and sports as well as Science Technical Engineering and Mathematics(STEM).
This new evaluation also recognizes the task of teachers under the CBC, which gives them supervisory roles.
“Introduction of CBC significantly varied the scope and the job content of teachers’ duties and responsibilities, consequently the TSC has developed and submitted more comprehensive JDs on the same,” reads the report.
