Makueni, Busia, Kericho, Bomet, Nairobi, Uasin Gishu, Vihiga, Narok, Kisii, Kwale, Migori, Laikipia and Taita Taveta are among the Kuppet branches that have written to the head office rejecting the controversial Teacher Professional Development (TPD) modules recently lauched by the Commission.
According to the branch executive secretaries who wrote to their national Kuppet secretary general, teachers have rejected in totality the TPD modules which Teachers Service Commission (TSC) want teachers to take during school holidays,
TSC said the mode of study for the modules will be face to face during the December school holidays and twice through online during the April and August holidays.
Charles Ngeno, Kuppet executive secretary in Narok county says TSC should first recognise and promote all those teachers who have undertaken post graduate training before enrolling out an exercise that is against accepted labour practises.
Ngeno says the choice of universities selected by TSC to offer the modules is suspicious because no consultations were made. He questioned why other public universities were left out.
Ngeno asked TSC to shoulder the cost for training the teachers or they move to court over forced training.
Okisai Moffats, Kuppet executive secretary in Busia county says TSC should first introduce fee allowance of kshs 120,000 per year before rolling out the controversial program.
“Can’t TSC organize online training so that teachers continue with their parental roles during holidays?” posed Moffats.
Moffats says selection of Mount Kenya university, KEMI, Riara and Kenyatta university is suspicious and feels its a business opportunity.
He said the actual cost of the training is more than kshs 6,000 per year if accommodation, transport and meals are included.
Robert Miano, Kuppet executive secretary in Laikipia county says TSC should work out a plan to reduce job stagnation which is at an alarming rate before committing teachers to stressful training.
Miano rejected the training period of the program that make teachers to study throughout their entire life.
He said the training should be target oriented and not for the entire teaching workforce and must be funded and facilitated by the employer.
Mary Rotich, Kuppet executive secretary in Kericho says enrolling for a program that makes teachers study for 30 yeats is unacceptable.
She said settling on KEMI, Riara, Mount Kenya and Kenyatta universities is suspicious and therefore dishonor the program.
Shedrack Mutungi, Kuppet executive secretary in Kwale county says even if promotions were to be pegged on TPD modules it is not possible for all the over 300,000 teachers in the TSC payroll to be promoted at once after completing the modules.
Mutungi ridiculed TSC plan that subjects teachers to 30 years of studying.
“It sounds ridiculous that 6 modules will be studied in 30 years of a teachers teaching career when the same teachers took 16 years or less to learn from pre-primary to college or university. What is this training that cannot be condensed in 5 years?” asked Mutungi.
Generally teachers have rejected the TPD modules and TSC will have rough time to make teachers embrace it.
“I beseech our teachers to embrace the TPD programme as it is certainly going to be a gamechanger. We will engage in robust communication and awareness campaigns to ensure that this programme is well understood and ends up benefiting the teacher in line with its objectives,” she said during the launch at CEMSTEA in Nairobi.
There are six TPD modules each teacher will have to undertake during their career and each will take five years to complete.
Macharia said all teachers in public and private schools would be required to undertake the mandatory Teacher Professional Development (TPD) courses during the school holidays at their own cost.
“At the end of each module, successful teachers will have their teaching certificates renewed after every five years,” said Macharia.
This means that those who will not have taken the refresher courses will not be granted teaching licence and may not be authorised to teach.
Macharia said the refresher courses will boost the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) roll out as teachers will be equipped with requisite skills.
Details show that each classroom teacher, primary school head teachers, or high school principals and their deputies will be required to undertake at least one module per year.
Classroom teachers will take up modules separate from the senior teachers, mostly institutional leaders and senior staff.
Modules for teachers will include professionalism, pedagogy, Competency-Based Curriculum and Assessment, inclusive education practices, comprehensive school health and safety, instructional leadership, and financial literacy skills.
And for institutional leaders, the modules will include professionalism, Competency-Based Curriculum and Assessment, leadership in high-quality instruction and assessment, professional learning environment, building a positive inclusive learning environment, comprehensive school health, and financial literacy skills.
The modules have been organised into chapters’ which will be taken by teachers every year.
The contract document defines a chapter as a critical area of knowledge and skills in a module that informs the development of learning units. Each chapter will be taken every year and will cost Sh6,000.
“The service provider will charge an annual training fee of Sh6,000 only per teacher which will be inclusive of all training sessions, assessment, reporting and all other associated costs incurred in carrying out the described service,” reads the document.
The fee will be paid by teachers even as unions said the matter should be revisited and cost shouldered by the employer.
“This cost needs to be relooked at and even made cheaper,” said Akello Misori, the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers secretary general.
The courses shall be modular-based training programmes for all practising teachers and will adopt online and in-person approach.