Good salaries come with more work, teachers told

Teachers sample text books from Trargeter Educational Publishers during the 42nd Kenya Secondary School Heads Association meeting at the Mombasa Wild Waters Theme Park. (Photo: Gideon Maundu, Standard)

The Sh54 billion salary increase for teachers will not be easy money.

Their employer, the Teachers Service Commission, has spelt out strict school work measures aimed at getting value for the pay rise.

TSC has committed to roll out the pay deal starting July 1 but with a catch: increased productivity, accountability and efficiency from all the 305,000 teachers.

With the new measures, school heads will be required to pick chalk and duster and teach the required workload.

It will also be compulsory for all principals heading boarding schools to stay in the institutions' compound.

And in order to supervise curriculum delivery in their schools, all school heads will be required to be in their respective schools ‘most of the time'.

These are part of the requirements the TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia spelt out as she explained the gains of the teachers pay rise during the 42nd Kenya Secondary School Heads Association meeting in Mombasa.

Duty register

“Any absence from school should be with written permission of the TSC county director,” said Ms Macharia.

Heads of boarding institutions will be required to offer 24-hour-seven-days-a-week leadership in all aspects of school life.

In her presentation to the packed hall of secondary school heads, Macharia said: "Implementation of better terms and conditions of service will come with responsibilities and accountability."

Speaking for the first time after signing the CBA with unions, Macharia released specific details and broke down the specific benefits for each category of teachers.

“Finally, let me once again assure all teachers in public learning institutions that their July Pay slips will reflect the improved pay,” she said, amid jubilation from the principals.

She said school resources must be managed prudently for the benefit of learners and other stakeholders.

She further said performance contracting and Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development (TPAD) tools will be firmly enforced for maximum benefits.

The TSC boss, however, said it will not be business as usual for schools heads, deputies and senior teachers. “All administrative posts in our learning institutions are substantive. This means you must work hard to remain in the positions,” she said.

As a compulsory, principals and head teachers will be posted outside their home counties and the number of years they stay in a school will be limited.

In addition, heads, their deputies and senior teachers will be competitively hired and their responsibilities remunerated.

Macharia said for many years, principals and head teachers have been petitioning TSC to recognise and reward additional roles and responsibilities they shoulder.

Better returns

“The CBA benefits are even better than what you have been demanding,” she said.

She said TSC has successfully negotiated with the Treasury for a two-phase implementation of the CBA for all teachers in lower grades and will benefit over 150,000 teachers.

Under the CBA, all institutional administrators, senior teachers, deputy head teachers, head teachers, senior masters and principals will be remunerated for the additional responsibilities. A new position of senior master has also been introduced in post-primary institutions.

These will be all teachers in post primary institutions in job group “M” and above and who are not heads of departments, deputy principals or principals.

“This measure will ensure teachers who hold higher job groups and earn higher salaries, work for the pay,” she said. The recently promoted 10,000 teachers to job groups K, M and N will also benefit from the implementation of the CBA.