TSC suffers a setback as MPs reject efforts to protect it from taskforce reforms.
Taskforce reforms: TSC news.The competency-based curriculum (CBC) taskforce’s proposals should be rejected, according to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), because they interfere with the body’s constitutional duties.
Executive Director Nancy Macharia said that the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) intends to eliminate its mandate and functions in a brief to the parliamentary Committee on Education.
TSC claimed that despite providing a full document and assembling a Working Party committee, the taskforce disregarded its recommendations on important teaching service issues.
“The Commission’s Board has reviewed the report’s recommendations and identified areas that will affect its mandate and functions under the Constitution and Statute Law,” said Macharia.
The PWPER also left the Commission off of the list of establishments it visited and the list of organizations it
“The Commission’s Board has reviewed the report’s recommendations and identified areas that will affect its mandate and functions under the Constitution and Statute Law,” said Macharia.
The Commission was not included on the PWPER’s list of visited institutions or its list of organizations that sent memos to the party.
She added, “The Commission considers that retaining those clauses will affect its mandate and the teaching service’s efficient management.
To match PWPER recommendations with constitutional and statutory teacher management regulations, the Commission respectfully requests your assistance.
This would improve teaching service and education sector harmony.”
They contest legislation that affects the Ministry of Education’s powers, including teacher recruitment and promotion, school rules, and trainee teacher internships.
The commission rejects giving the Ministry of Education powers to draft guidelines for an obligatory one-year retooling and upgrading course for all instructors who graduated before 2023 to comply with the curriculum reform.
TSC claims that the taskforce improperly gave the ministry powers to carry out the exercise without consulting the Commission on Training, limiting teacher employment and registration standards.
Macharia: “The recommendation restricts teacher employment and alters registration requirements.”
On the proposal to allow the ministry to control operations in learning institutions and TSC to decentralise its functions, the commission says disbanding the directorate will cause TSC to lose key functions like teacher registration and maintenance of the teacher register, teacher performance, appraisal and development, teacher professional development, capacity building, and improvement of teaching service.
The taskforce recommends that the TSC work with the Ministry on promotions, deployment of teachers, teacher welfare, and institutional administrators, which the commission said will render existing policies irrelevant, create ambiguity in the targeted areas of harmonisation, and lead to potential conflicts in institutional management as the Commission and MoE will share the appointment of heads of institution.
Macharia said: “The Constitution and TSC Act give the Commission control over teacher management strategies. Assigning this obligation to another institution would usurp the Commission’s authority and operational independence.
Macharia said amending the TSC Act to add Section 46A, which would allow anyone to appeal a Commission decision to the Education Appeals Tribunal, would technically subject all Commission decisions to the Tribunal.
Article 249 of the Constitution guarantees the Commission’s decisional independence, which the plan would undermine. This modification will put the Commission under direct Tribunal oversight, monitoring, and management, she stated.
On the suggestion to have TSC study pre-primary teacher deployment and institutional administration policies and guidelines, the panel noted TSC may be given additional functions outside its constitutional scope.
TSC claimed amending pre-service teaching programme admission grades to allow the ministry to review them would eliminate the subject cluster method.
She said transferring teaching service entry requirements to the government and other institutions would usurp the Commission’s constitutional mandate.
Macharia said that allowing MOE to establish a comprehensive school system where all levels of learning are managed as one institution (PP1—Grade 9) will increase the number of institutional administrators and the Commission’s mandate to manage pre-primary education, which is the County Government’s responsibility.
A candidate with a recognised certificate in a technical subject area from a recognised college shall be considered for diploma training in the same subject area, TSC said.
The prescribed minimum entry mean grade may not be considered at registration. This will require a review of the registration requirement and teacher recruitment policy.
TSC stated that the requirement that the commission offer all education graduates a mandatory one-year internship programme after pre-service training will affect the commission’s internship policy and practice.
Macharia: “The Commission will need more money to engage all graduates. This will involve registration changes.”
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