Time is up for P1 teachers, TSC says

By Benard Sanga

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will start phasing out primary school teachers with P1 qualifications. This comes barely a year after the same commission scrapped P2 credentials.

TSC says all primary school teachers will undergo a two-year diploma-training course after which they will be required to do a professional test to acquire a Teaching Professional Certificate.

Teachers without the professional certificates will not be allowed to teach even if they have graduated and been issued with the TSC number, according to TSC Chief Executive Gabriel Lengoiboni at Shanzu Teachers College in Mombasa yesterday.

Those employed already will also have to undergo the mandatory professional training whose modules are currently being developed to acquire the certificate.

Not relented

The teachers’ employer says the professional certificate could be withdrawn from teachers who would not perform or engaged in unethical practices and would not be able to practice, in a move similar to other professionals like lawyers.

And the teachers with P1 qualifications who enrolled for a university degree hoping it would enable them secure employment in secondary schools are also in for a rude shock as TSC ruled out such possibilities insisting that lower class teachers with degrees would still teach the same level. “We will gradually phase out P1 and start to train diploma courses in our teacher training institutions. That is why we are insisting that only candidates with a mean grade of C+ would be considered for selections into these institutions.

“We are also at the final stage in the development of modules that trained teachers would undertake to acquire professional certificates,” said Lengoiboni, adding that teachers without those professional certificates would not be allowed to teach.

He said the development the modules were at the final stage   and may be rolled out as soon as next year. This means that a teacher, like other professions, would not be employed without professional document even if they have acquired training from colleges and acquired TSC number.

The new regulations seem to the building blocks to the anticipated mandatory signing of performance contracts by teachers that has put the teachers union, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) and TSC on a collision course.

Lengoiboni said that TSC had not relented in its push to have all teachers sign the contracts but had given room for consultations with Knut.

The idea to have teacher sign performance contract was mooted in 2008 but it has not implemented after Knut opposed it on grounds that teachers were hired on permanent terms and signing the contracts would change their employment status.

Knut and Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) argue that the Education Cabinet Secretary and the Principal Secretary should sign the contracts on behalf of teachers.

Their stand is informed by fears that use of the management tool was TSC trick to target teachers. “If you demand a bigger salary from your employer and he gives you, then you should also expect him to demand for better services from you,” said Lengoiboni during Education Day at Shanzu Teachers College.

A research by Uwezo initiative carried out in February this year, painted a grim picture on the quality of education in the primary schools revealing that some pupils in class seven could not read a passage meant for class two. The research also found out that some primary school teachers could not solve a class six-math problem.

And TSC now says that the performance contract would enable it to evaluate the standard of education at primary and secondary schools.