The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will not extend the deadline for teachers to update their profile, its Director of Quality Assurance and Standards, Dr. Reuben Nthamburi has said.
According to Nthamburi, teachers were informed earlier and had enough time to carry out the exercise successfully.
However teachers are complaining of network problems and an unresponsive system that will not open to allow them update their profiles.
In July 2021, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) directed all registered teachers to update their profile.
Through a circular dated 28th July 2021 Dr. Reuben Nthamburi ordered teachers to update their profile by 30th November 2021 to help the Commission maintain an updated register of teachers.
“It has been established that the teachers’ details in the Register is not updated. To this end, the Commission has opened the online register to allow individual teachers to update their details.
A link has been developed in the TSC website where all registered teachers are required to access and update their details by 30 November 2021,” said Reuben Nthamburi.
However some teachers are still hopeful the Commission will extend the deadline to allow them complete updating their profiles.
Some teachers also questioned why the TSC is putting deadlines when such an exercise should be a continuous one.
TSC profile updating is one of the Commissions effort to fully move to a digital platform and do way with paperwork.
The Commission says the era of missing files for teachers is now a thing of the past, since it has digitized its registry.
The commission now says with effect from November 1st, 2021 release of physical files from Teacher registry to various departments for action has ceased and all operations are made electronic.
In an internal memo dated November 1st, 2021 issued by the Director of Administrative Services Ibrahim Mumin, the Commission says only files of teachers exiting the service by way of retirement, transfer of services, resignation or death will be considered for release on case by case basis, and this must be approved by his office or that of Deputy Director in charge of Records Management.
Other files that fall in this category are those under litigation process upon request by Directorate of Legal, Labour and Industrial Relations, teachers on new appointment and are yet to be on-board on the payroll, or teachers on internship.
Teachers are also required to declare their wealth by end of this year. The Commission says any declarations made after the midnight of 31st December, 2021 will not go through.
According to Section 26 & 27 of the Public Officer Ethics Act (POEA) all Public Officers are required to declare their Income, Assets and Liabilities (IALs) every two years. The previous declaration was done in 2019.
According to Circular 12/2021 TSC said any teacher employed by the Commission who fails to submit the declaration or gives false or misleading information will be liable to a fine of Kshs 1,000,000 or be imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year or both upon conviction.
Further, the teacher will be subjected to administrative disciplinary action as per the TSC Administrative Procedures on DIALs.
TSC ordered Heads of Institutions to monitor the declaration progress in their respective institutions and report on non-Compliance by 31st December, 2021.
The Commission said all teachers employed by TSC must declare Income, Assets & Liabilities. These include teachers on:
• Leave of whatever nature
• Interdiction
• Suspension
• Authorized absence of duty
The teachers employer said teachers who have been in employment for a period of less than two years should submit their Initial declarations cause the system has been customized to facilitate this.
TEACHER REQUIREMENTS FOR PROFILE UPDATING
To update profile you will use the link https://tsconline.tsc.go.ke/register/update-profile where you will be required to enter your ID/Passport number, TSC number, Surname and a valid phone number in the format 07********.
Once you click Next a four digit verification code will be sent to your phone, enter the code and click Verify.
A new window will open where you will be required to check fill in the missing details.
Ensure your ID/Passport number, First, Surname and other names, KRA pin, Religion, Date of Birth, Gender, Mobile number, Nationality, Home County, Home Subcounty, Division, Zone, Constituency, Impairment type, Permanent Postal Address, Current Postal Address and Town are captured accurately.
Once you have entered the required details click next to proceed to next step where you will be required to upload the following documents in pdf formart, also ensure the document size does not exceed 1Mb;
1) ID or Passport
2) KRA Pin Certificate
3) Passport Photo
4) KCPE Certificate
5) KCSE Certificate
6) PTE, Diploma, Degree Certificates
7) Affidavit incase of differing names in your documents
In addition you will be required to key in the Primary and Secondary schools you attended, the year you joined the year you left, the certificates you were awarded, certificates number and the year the certificates were awarded .
You will do the same for Tertiary institutions you attended. The exercise for updating profiles ends on 30th November 2021.
WHAT TO DO INCASE OF MISSING DOCUMENTS
To update your profile TSC has provided the link for doing this. Click here to update your TSC personal profile.
The most important thing to check in this exercise is time. The portal is closing on 30th November 2021 and so there is no enough time to run up and down replacing lost documents.
A teacher might be missing a CPE certificate or an original ID card which may derail the process of updating his profile.
However despite this challenge there is a way out. If you lost your KCSE certificate you can upload your KCSE result slip instead. Alternatively you can upload a photocopy of your KCSE certificate if you have one.
Incase of a missing ID card you can use a Passport if you have one to update your profile.
Alternatively you can report of a missing ID card to your nearest police station where you will be issued with a police Abstract which you can use to upload in the portal.
Don’t forget to use a photocopy of your ID card incase you have one around which can save you time looking for a police Abstract.
If you are a primary school teacher and you have lost your PTE certificate you can use your PTE result slip to update your profile.
Alternatively you can use a photocopy of your PTE certificate incase you got one to upload to the portal.
Diploma and graduate teachers can use similar process to update their profiles. Use result slip or transcripts instead to update your profile.
Alternatively you can use a photocopy of your Diploma or Degree certificate to upload to the portal.
Incase you lost your KRA pin certificate this can easily be retrieved by logging in to your KRA portal using your KRA pin where you can reprint the certificate.
Alternatively you can visit your nearest KRA offices or Huduma centre with your ID card and request for a reprint of the KRA pin certificate.
What about teachers who never attended tertiary institutions? We understand there are a number of primary school teachers who only sat for their secondary education to become teachers.
However despite these teachers lacking professional training they took a number short courses like Teacher Professional Courses (TPC) with TSC to enhance their teaching skills.
For such teachers they can upload their TPC certificates as their tertiary level training.
Teachers with lost CPE, KCPE, KCSE, CSE, DTE, PTE etc and do not have a back up like a result slip, photocopy of the document should report to the nearest police station for the missing documents.
They will be issued with a police abstract which they can use to upload to the portal.
Consequences for failing to update profile
Teachers who will fail to update their profile will not receive their Registration Certificates which is a key requirement in the upcoming Biometric Registration exercise for teachers.
The teachers will also have insufficient details in the TSC registration database which may hamper quality services.
Consequently a show cause letter maybe issued to teachers who fail to adhere to TSC policies and instructions.
According to the Commission the Registration Certificate will be sent to the postal address provided during the profile updating exercise.
Unemployed teachers might have problems during TSC recruitment for having incomplete profile and lacking crucial details in the database.