A petition has been filed in the National Assembly, decrying alleged discrimination against secondary school deputy principals in career progression by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
Speaker of the National Assembly, Moses Wetang’ula, said his office has received a petition from Maurice Otieno Ouma and Paul Juma Were, together with 14 others, on behalf of affected deputy principals in the country, accusing TSC of discriminating against secondary school deputy principals in promotions.
He said the petitioners are concerned that they have made several efforts to have their grievances addressed by TSC to no avail and have sought the intervention of Parliament to, among other issues, make inquiries into the matter and recommend appropriate mechanisms for solving the impasse for the benefit of affected teachers, in particular Deputy Principals.
“Having determined issues raised by the petitioners are well within the authority of this House, I order that pursuant to provisions of Standing Orders, this petition be committed to the Departmental Committee on Education and is required to consider the petition and report its findings to the House and petitioners,” Wetang’ula directed.
The petitioners are also seeking that the National Assembly make recommendations that will promote career progression by deputy principals as per the guidelines under the TSC code of regulations for teachers and effect the necessary promotions to various job groups.
The Speaker also said the petitioners state that the TSC, jointly with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), undertook a job evaluation in the public teaching sector and came up with recommendations that led to a paradigm shift in teachers’ career progression in 2016.
The changes were aimed at providing a new grading structure, setting minimum requirements for appointment, recruitment, and promotion, and introducing Teacher Professional Development (TPD).
The petitioners told Parliament that these consultations and recommendations led to the development of the Career Progression Guidelines for Teachers, 2018, which provide, among other things, for the promotion of teachers. The petitioners decry the implementation of the guidelines, which required serving teachers as of 8 November 2017 to adopt and convert to the new designations and grading structures provided therein.
According to petitioners, the conversion of teachers in Job Group N to Grade D1, most of whom are deputy principals, under the Career Progression Guidelines for Teachers, 2018, was akin to a demotion, as it did not take into account the number of years teachers had stagnated in the various job groups.
In particular, they referred to teachers in Job Groups M and N whose conversion could be converted to grades D3 and D4, respectively.
Deputy Majority Leader, Owen Baya, supported the urgent need to address deputy principals’ plight, saying their work sometimes supersedes that of the principals.
Baya, who said he left the profession at the level of deputy principal, insisted that the officers should be well remunerated because a majority are disgruntled.
“We have disgruntled deputy principals, and sometimes, it boils down to some of the problems we have in our schools, which probably stem from such disgruntlement of high-level stuff. I would request the education committee to help deputy principals. We see the amount of work they put in to ensure that schools run, and sometimes they are subject to hate because of many things. They must be accorded the respect they deserve, including monetary respect,” Baya stated.
Funyula MP, Wilberforce Oundo, also joined in saying that the issue of deputy principals is becoming an emotive and demoralising situation.
“It has got to a point even now that we do not have teachers who can act or be appointed as deputy principals. We urge the Ministry, TSC, and the committee to go and rethink the issue of teachers stagnating for long is demoralising. The committee must move with speed to solve this matter,” Oundo stated.
Nominated MP Dorothy Ikiara emphasised that teachers in all ranks do a lot of work, noting that the petition is timely and challenged the education committee and other stakeholders to look into the matter.
“It is very demoralising for a teacher to be employed and retire after 40 years in the same grade. This is a matter of policy shift, and it is high time to look at our policy. We can uplift the morale of our teachers. The teachers, notwithstanding the treatment they get, are always committed to ensuring that they religiously do their work without minding the shortcomings of what they do not get. Let this petition be taken seriously,” Ikiara said.
The MPS said the issue of teachers stagnating in one grade is alarming, with some even more than 10 years, while others work in an acting capacity over the same period.
They said that it is high time that the Ministry and TSC take measures to ensure there is a policy that once one is appointed in an acting capacity, they stay for only a short period of time, then confirmed to that position first.
