Primary headteachers to be promoted to D1 in July 2025 through CBA

Just a day after primary school headteachers called for their promotion from headteacher to principal grades, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has responded by giving a condition.

According to Kenya Primary School Headteachers Association (KEPSHA) chairman Johnson Nzioka, the head teachers are agitating for enhanced pay commensurate to their responsibility of managing Junior Secondary School (JSS) domiciled in their institutions.

The primary headteachers who are also acting principals of junior secondary want to be moved from their current C5 grade to grade D1 progressively inline with Career Progression Guidelines (CPG).

However TSC CEO Dr. Nancy Macharia while addressing the headteachers in the KEPSHA conference in Mombasa said it will not be possible to promote the headteachers without a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

Macharia said the headteachers should submit the proposal through the teachers unions for the issue to be addressed in the next CBA (2025 – 2029).

“We cannot review salaries without a formal Collective Bargaining Agreement,” Nancy Macharia told the primary school headteachers.

“With regard to additional responsibilities I have heard. These are additional responsibilities occasioned by implementation of CBC including management of junior school and noting that the same touches on terms and conditions of service. They (unions) have given us a memorandum of what we expect in the next CBA. Ask the unions to include this issue to be addressed in the CBA,” added Macharia.

TSC has been giving the headteachers one year contract (January to December) to the more than 10,000 headteachers hosting JSS in their schools to act as principals.

The contract has been renewed each year but now the headteachers want their title changed from headteacher to principal on permanent and pensionable terms.

The head teachers are also demanding to be compensated for the period that they have acted as managers of the Junior Secondary School.

“For the last two years, we were assigned additional responsibility to head JSS. However, the government did not factor that in salary enhancement,” said Nzioka.

They say they are under immense pressure dealing with a high number of learners. 

“Schools are understaffed as we loose some teachers to natural attrition, yet students’ number keeps going up,” stated Nzioka. 

“We cannot provide quality education when staff are overstretched. She (Dr Macharia) has to illustrate how we should work with the number of teachers in schools,” noted Nzioka.

According to TSC in the last one year, the government has employed 57,000 teachers in JSS. However the population in schools by next year will be 3.8 million learners.