The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) says schools heads have a duty to ensure their teachers comply to its latest directive on T-Pay profile updating exercise.
The heads of institution are required to verify and approve the profile of teachers under their supervision by 8th July 2022.
Their own profiles will be verified and approved by the Sub-County Directors (for head teachers of primary institution) and County Directors (for heads of post primary institutions) within same period.
Even after teachers finish the T-Pay validation exercise, the process can only be completed by school heads who must verify them.
The Commission says heads of institution who will not have validated the particulars of teachers under their supervision within the stipulated time, they together with their teachers will not be able to access their T-Pay accounts.
This means the teachers with their HOI will be able to access their payslips online or even initiate a loan application process on the T-Pay.
Those who are yet to file their KRA returns will not be able to access their p9 forms for doing so. The T-Pay will just be out of bounds for them.
A teacher can know if a school head has validated his/her details if the ‘Update details’ banner on the T-pay portal disappears and stops blinking.
According to the Commission all teachers together with its secretariat staff must update their T-Pay details by 15th July 2022.
TSC CEO Dr Nancy Macharia says the exercise which started on 9th June, 2022 is aimed at protecting its employees from fraudsters and in turn help enhance security features of its various systems.
She said the TPAY system handles teachers and secretariat Pay slips, P9 statements, Control sheets, Third Party transactions, application and approval of Loans process.
Macharia says users of the system have faced security challenges in the past where fraudsters have used details of legit users of the system to gain access into the system.
A good example is where a teacher had to pay a loan of sh 1 million which was initiated and approved by the fraudsters after accessing payslip passwords.
To curb this, she says the Commission has enhanced security by introducing a two level authentication process, where OTP is sent to the user’s registered phone number or Email to enable them log in.
Secondly, the user’s passport size photograph is to be updated in the TPAY user profile for purposes of identification.
This feature comes in handy as it shall assist the financial institutions in physical identification of the applicants on financial services as legitimate users and owners of the TPAY accounts.
In order to enhance the security of teachers’ information and in line with the Data Protection Act 201 9, the Commission requires all teachers to update their TPAY profile in the following manner:
i. Access the payslip page through the TSC website and log into TPAY,
ii. Upload a passport photo clearly showing the face, without glasses or head-covered,
iii. Enter and verify current mobile numbers,
iv. Once you enter the mobile number and OTP (One Time Password) will be sent to your mobile number.
v. Input the OTP to validate the mobile number.
vi. Click on the validate tab to verify that it is the correct mobile number,
NB: Only a valid code will be accepted and once verified the number cannot be changed, The mobile number will be used during loan application and approvals
vii. Enter and verify official email issued by the Commission e.g xyz@mwalimu.tsc.go.ke