The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has upheld that the latest efforts by the P1 ‘A’ level teachers to demand excessive payment for their outstanding salary arrears from 1996 to 2010 is unreasonable, despite the educators expressing intentions to pursue legal action.
In response to the teachers’ request for the payment of their arrears totaling Ksh3. 45 billion, TSC emphasized that no salary arrears have been incurred and that the teachers were promoted following discussions among the Commission, Ministry of Education (MoE), Treasury, and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), resulting in salary adjustments.
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“Following negotiations involving the Commission, Ministry of Education, Treasury, and KNUT, P1 ‘A’ Level teachers received promotions in 2003, with a financial implication of Ksh332,194,522 from 2005 to 2007 under the Scheme of Service for non-graduate teachers, in 2010 with a financial implication of Ksh1. 4 billion, and finally in 2014,” stated TSC.
According to TSC, teachers’ salaries were adjusted appropriately in line with their new grades following all these promotions. No petitioner has provided evidence to demonstrate that despite their promotions, their salaries were not adjusted sufficiently to justify the request for salary arrears.
The Commission has also asserted that the promotion of P1 ‘A’ Level teachers was addressed and reviewed by the Departmental Committee on Education, Research and Technology on April 19, 2010, and that since the matter was thoroughly discussed and resolved by the Committee, it cannot be revisited 13 years later, reiterating that promotion is a term of service stipulated in contracts.
“It is evident that promotion is a contractual term of service that, like all other employment terms, must be negotiated and agreed upon by the employer and the employee,” remarked TSC.
As clarified by the Commission, it began in 1995 when public secondary schools faced a severe teacher shortage. At that time, the Commission employed Untrained Graduate Teachers (UTS) who possessed A-Level qualifications.
To mitigate the shortage, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST) developed a two-week intensive course in July 1995, which the A-Level teachers underwent. Consequently, they were promoted to S1 grade after completing training at Kangundo and Bondo Teachers Training Colleges.
As disclosed by TSC, the teachers involved in this initiative were Secondary School teachers who had at least six years of teaching experience and held one principal and two subsidiary subjects, excluding the general paper.
“The decision to promote Untrained Teachers with ‘A’ Level qualifications stemmed from the necessity to resolve a significant shortage of teachers in secondary schools and therefore did not extend to Primary School teachers,” detailed TSC.
Subsequently, in July 1996, the government enacted a Scheme of Service for non-graduate teachers. Non-graduate teachers of P3, P2, P1, and ATS IV grades were to be advanced to higher grades upon the successful completion of the Teachers Promotion Course (TPC) overseen by the Ministry of Education. This also resulted in the discontinuation of the S1 grade and the establishment of the ATS IV grade.
Serving S1 teachers, conversely, were permitted to advance to ATS III, II, and I progressively after three years of satisfactory performance at one grade. Consequently, following the promotion of untrained ‘A’ level teachers to the S1 grade, KNUT started to campaign for the advancement of P1 teachers with ‘A’ level qualifications, which eventually resulted in multiple consultative meetings between 2000 and 2003 involving TSC, MoE, and KNUT.
Nevertheless, in a letter dated December 22, 2023, the National Treasury expressed its stance regarding the payment of salary arrears for the aforementioned P1 teachers with ‘A’ level academic qualifications. The National Treasury and Economic Planning Cabinet Secretary, then Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u, instructed TSC to devise a progressive approach to address the issue in case of any arrears.
This followed the preparation of a report by the Senate Standing Committee on Education after a petition addressing the salary arrears. The Committee advised that the National Treasury should include the teachers’ salary arrears from 1996 to 2010 so that they could be paid during the 2023/2024 Financial Year.
In the letter, Prof. Ndung’u noted that even though the Senate advocated for the payment of the arrears in the petition, the report contradicted this by stating that there were no arrears. Therefore, the letter requested the TSC to clarify this issue.
He also pointed out that the report indicated there were negotiations and agreements between KNUT, TSC, and the National Treasury from 2003 to 2014, which aimed to address the inequality in terms of grade between untrained ‘A’ level teachers promoted in 1996 and P1 ‘A’ level teachers promoted in 2003, resulting in salary reviews and adjustments, and thus, indicating that there are no accrued arrears. This contradicts the recommendation stating that there are arrears,” remarked Prof. Ndung’u in the correspondence to the TSC head, Dr. Nancy Macharia.
“In this regard, we ask that TSC clarify this issue and provide a detailed account of the arrears, if any, for the disputed years to assess the financial implications. Therefore, if there are indeed arrears, TSC should create a progressive method of addressing them within the normal budgetary framework,” added the CS.
This ongoing struggle has led the teachers, under their representative organization of the Retired and About to Retire Members Welfare Association (REAR), to file a lawsuit against TSC for discrimination surrounding the promotions of their S1 colleagues. This situation has put them in breach of Section 5 of the Employment Act since the work performed by P1 ‘A’ level teachers and their S1 counterparts warranted equal pay, given that both roles required equivalent levels of effort.
They further allege that TSC is discriminatory towards them despite their superior qualifications and experience compared to their S1 counterparts. In spite of this perceived discrimination, the Commission has declined to compensate them for their salary arrears.
They are now seeking the court’s intervention to mandate TSC to pay them their arrears from 1996 to 2010 along with compensation for the duration they have endured while advocating for their rightful pay.