The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will continue to approve and transfer delocalized teachers back to regions closer to their homes.
Though TSC has a policy to approve transfer requests of teachers and those delocalized at the end of the year and academic term this will now change as Regional Directors have been ordered to keep approving transfer requests for those who applied.
TSC is rushing to comply to orders issued by the Members of Parliament (MPs) requiring the Commission to re-routing all delocalized teachers back to their home areas.
For two weeks now many transfer letters have been trickling into TSC County Directors offices for the delocalized teachers to pick.
The Commission has suspended the delocalization and transfer policy which made it difficult for delocalized teachers to be transferred.
However TSC has only been approving regional transfers for delocalized teachers while those seeking to have transfers from one region to another like Coast region to Eastern region are still having difficulties.
Last month, TSC announced a mass transfer affecting 14,613 teachers during the commission’s delocalization policy.
TSC Secretary Dr Nancy Macharia said, 12,019 teachers will be placed in the inter-county transfers which will be effected by the Regional Director of Education.
Further, the 2,594 teachers will be placed in the inter-regional transfers which will be effected by the Commission headquarters. Out of these, 226 will affect high school principals.
The recent newly recruited teachers on permanent and pensionable terms as well as those on internship have also been posted, starting last week, to areas closer to their homes except for those in secondary schools which mostly depends with subject combinations.
They comprise of 1,000 primary school teachers on permanent and pensionable terms and 4,000 others on internship.
Others are 21,550 posts for teacher interns in junior secondary schools and 9,000 posts on permanent and pensionable terms of service for secondary school teachers to be posted to junior secondary schools.
On 25th January the National Assembly Speaker, Moses Wetang’ula, added a punch to TSC after he ruled that the delocalization policy is illegal as there was no parliamentary approval to the policy.
This forced TSC to start transferring teachers even those who have served for less than five years or lacking a replacement.
Delocalized teachers in some counties however have raised complaints that the TSC officials are delaying and blocking their transfers despite complying to the Commission requirements.
They include Nyandarua, Narok, Vihiga, Samburu, Taita Taveta, Siaya, Kakamega, Bungoma, Nandi, Laikipia, Kisii, Homa Bay, Bomet and Trans Nzoia.
TSC was given till 31st January by Parliament to ensure all delocalized teachers who applied for transfers have been moved unconditionally.
While appearing before MPs, TSC board chair Jamleck Muturi and head of legal affairs Calvin Anyuor, were ordered to ensure the lawmakers decision on delocalization of teachers is implemented.
The Education Committee chaired by Tinderet MP Julius Melly gave the commission up to end of January to ensure all teachers who had been delocalized have been transferred back to their areas.
Melly told the commission not to belabour the matter but to ensure it tables a report on how it plans to implement the said move after the National Assembly made a decision on the said policy.
Its now clear that delocalized teachers who applied for transfers will ultimately be moved to areas they wanted.
However caution was issued against delocalized teachers who transferred without being officially released by the Head of Institution (HOI), Sub County Director (SCD) and the County Director (CD).
Some delocalized teachers have complained that they are being posted to different sub counties and not the ones they initially applied to.
Apart from delocalized teachers TSC has also affected a number of transfers for Principals of National, Extra County and Sub-County schools across the country who have been moved in the mass transfer.