18 Statehouse Girls teachers to get their TSC PNP letters on Ruto order

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has printed a total of 18 employment letters for teachers who were working on Board of Management (BOM) terms at Statehouse girls high school, Nairobi.

Sources close to the Commission have received that the teachers will receive the letters by Tuesday next week.

The teachers will receive their letters of employment on permanent and pensionable (PNP) terms after President William Ruto, who had visited the school, ordered for their immediate employment.

Ruto had been briefed by the school Principal Mrs. Evelyn Nabukwesi on the plight of the teachers who were struggling financially and lacked the zeal in their teaching chores.

The President then gave TSC one week to ensure the teachers are absorbed into PNP payroll amid applause from teachers, students and parents.

However the move by President Ruto to award employment to the teachers met condemnation from a section of teachers and the public.

The critics called out the President for ignoring meritocracy, criticizing him for not allowing TSC, an independent Commission, to do the recruitment of teachers.

Some teachers also condemned the president for not allowing the teachers to go through internship programme like other teachers.

The presidents decree awakens the ghost of employment at TSC where politicians including Members of Parliament (MPs) and Cabinet Secretaries (CS’s) have been implicated in employment scandals.

Since 2022 TSC has never advertised the teacher replacement slots like it used to do. Instead the Commission awards the slots to politicians.

At one time the former CS for Education, Ezekiel Machogu, was reprimanded after he publicly issued employment letters to teachers in a funeral service in Kisii county.

Another Kenya Kwanza official Sylvanus Osoro was also found with bunch of official TSC employment letters in his house.

The TSC employments through the politicians were skewed and lacked merit. The hiring saw some teacher getting employment without going through internship.

In other cases a teacher who graduated recently was issued with employment while others who had served many years after graduation missed out.

Teachers had to part with sh 100,000 or more among other sacrifices for them to be awarded with employment letters.

More than 6,000 replacement slots were awarded to politicians to fill in the 2023 – 2024 financial year alone. Most of them went to cronies and family members.

According to TSC a teacher must be intern before being considered for employment on PNP terms.

The Teacher Internship Programme is a one year programme meant to equip and sustain competencies of persons entering the teaching service.

The programme targets unemployed registered teachers to be assigned to learning institutions where their teaching experience will be enhanced through mentorship, coaching and exposure to practical teaching experience.

Currently TSC has on its payroll a total of 46,000 teachers serving on internship terms.

These are 21,550 junior school and 4,000 primary school intern teachers recruited in February 2023.

450 secondary school intern teachers recruited in April 2023. 18,000 junior school and 2,000 primary school intern teachers recruited in September 2023.

TSC has been allocated sh 18.7 billion to convert the teachers to PNP terms. TSC has said it will issue the teachers with PNP letters in December for them to start serving on new terms in January 2025.

The graduate teachers will start at job group C2 which is the entry grade for graduate teachers.

Here the teachers will earn a basic salary of sh 34,955 to a maximum of sh 43,694 after serving for three years.

The teachers will get sh 5,000 as commuter allowance and sh 6,000 as leave allowance paid once in a year.

They will be entitled to sh 7,500 as house allowance except those who live in Nairobi sh 16,500, those in major Municipalities; Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, Nyeri, Eldoret, Thika, Kisii and Kitale sh 12,800 and those in other former minor Municipalities sh 9,600.

Those working in hardship areas will get sh 10,900 as hardship allowance. The teachers will also get comprehensive medical cover paid through their monthly medical allowance.

The teachers will get automatic promotion to job group C3 after serving for three years.