Politicians should stop arm-twisting the Teachers Service Commission into transferring teachers, secondary school heads have said.
Speaking on the fourth day of the 46th Kenya Secondary School Heads Association annual national conference in Mombasa, the principals said politicians should keep off the running of schools and the job of TSC.
“Some politicians try to play the role of TSC. They are trying to arm-twist the TSC so that they can move principals from their areas to other areas because they want their own people,” Kessha chairman Indimuli Kahi said.
However, Julius Melly, the National Assembly education committee chairman, denied that politicians are interfering with or influencing the transfer of teachers.
He said MPs and TSC commissioners have different powers and mandates and no one is trying to usurp the other’s powers.
“Actually, Members of Parliament compliment and assist in the management of schools and even in staffing of those schools by giving the requisite problems facing the people.
“So, every other time the MPs talk about staffing they are not actually trying to force teachers out of their areas. They are telling the TSC the special needs their areas have,” Melly said.
The MP said certain areas are bandit-throne and others are have difficulties for teachers in terms of transport.
Through the NG-CDF, Melly said, MPs even build staff quarters for teachers, apart from giving funds to schools through student scholarships.
Kahi however said they have evidence where some politicians have interfered with the management of schools.
“There are areas which we can name, when time comes, and those particular politicians who are engineering the movement of principals,” Kahi said.
He said that it is good for principals to work in their home areas but then argued that there may not be enough schools to accommodate all principals coming from a particular area.
“Some regions will end up lacking even normal teachers,” Kahi said.
Teachers, he said, are a shared national resource which should be fairly distributed across the country.
“If I am willing to work in a county that is not mine I should be given the opportunity to serve the nation there. If I want to go back home, I should also get the opportunity to go back home.
“So, I should not be vilified for not having gone back to my county to work there because the TSC employs us and can deploy us to work in any part of this nation,” Kahi said.
Transfers, he said, should be done professionally.
On mid-year transfers, MP Melly said the Education ministry is trying to ensure continuity of learners, which is interrupted whenever a child is transferred in the middle of a school year.
“We do concur with the ministry. Let the children stay to the end of the year. If they want to move to the next school then that is proper,” Melly said.
He said even parents discourage the frequent transfer of students from one school to another as this is not healthy for the learner’s educational and social progress.
The MP said the government should release all funds to schools to enable principals run schools effectively and efficiently.
“It is wrong to finds that some money has been released and it is not reaching schools as anticipated by parents,” Melly said.
The committee also said teachers should not be made to act for a long time.
Teachers should be confirmed as principals, deputy principals and senior teachers, the committee noted.
He said the TSC is delaying in confirmation of teachers promoted to senior positions and this creates doubts among those promoted teachers.
“We want the TSC to stop this issue of having teachers acting across the country. This is a new phenomenon which we want to discourage,” Melly said.