Teachers in the country have been handed a reprieve after the government agreed to pay for their Teacher Professional Development (TPD) training that was introduced by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) in 2021.
In a supplementary budget tabled before parliament by the National Treasury, Ksh2 billion was allocated for the training of teachers in the 2021/2022 fiscal year.
TSC had announced that every teacher in the country will have to pay Ksh6,000 per year for each of the six modules they are meant to cover over a period of five years. This attracted protests from tutors nationwide.
Prior to the government's intervention, each teacher would have been required to pay Ksh180,000 for the entire period.
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“As a committee, we agreed that we get this money from the Ministry of Education. We will now fight for the money to be included in the main budget,” Ms Florence Mutua, the chair of the Education and Research Committee of the National Assembly stated.
TSC officials had appeared before the Members of Parliament at a Nairobi hotel on Wednesday, February 9.
The committee had convened to review proposals by the Ministry of Education and TSC included in the supplementary budget.
The allocation was occasioned by a petition filed by Emuhaya MP and Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) national chairperson Omboko Milemba.
“Education is for public good and public consumption so we can’t surcharge teachers. TSC should treat it the same way it treats training for CBC. It is now in the hands of MPs to either say aye or nay, but we shall be defending it on the floor of the house,” Milemba told the Nation on Thursday, February 10.
Under the TPD programme, teachers are required to undertake an upskilling module every five years or risk losing their teaching licences. Teachers will undergo training during the school holidays.
The lucrative deal to train close to 500,000 teachers is currently being offered through four institutions: Kenyatta University, Riara University, Mt Kenya University and the Kenya Education Management Institute.
TSC has employed 341,760 teachers while about 150,000 others work in private schools and many others are unemployed.
MPs also sought to know whether the teachers who had already begun the training will be refunded.
“Once there is direction and funding, the commission will retreat to look at what happens to the teachers who are already enrolled and are undergoing the training,” said Cheptumo Ayabei, the TSC director of finance.
