The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) says it has effected new maternity and paternity leave changes in line with Code of Regulations for Teachers and Collective Bargaining Agreement (2021-2025).
Female teachers can now apply for four-month maternity leave. This after the TSC increased the maternity and paternity leaves with full pay.
Female teachers will get four months’ maternity leave while male ones will be entitled to 21 days’ paternity leave.
The development is in partial fulfillment of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (2021-2025) package, which has specific provisions for maternity, paternity and pre-adoptive leave.
“Female employees shall be entitled to 120 calendar days with full pay, with effect from the date of delivery, and the teacher shall not forfeit her annual leave on account of having taken maternity leave,” said the commission’s Executive Officer Nancy Macharia in a statement.
Male teachers will be eligible for paternity leave of 21 calendar days, with full pay once a year within the duration of the spouse’s maternity leave, while teachers seeking pre-adoptive time are now eligible for 45 calendar days, with full pay from the date of adoption.
In the new CBA, which took effect from July 2021, teachers successfully bargained for increased maternity and paternity leave days from the previous 90 days and 14 days for men and women, respectively, to the now implemented 120 days and 21 days.
The agreement was signed between TSC and teachers’ unions.
“The Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS) Leave Module for teachers was effected from November 1, 2021, and subsequently the leave application process has been executed seamlessly,” read the statement.
The CEO said the commission had successfully migrated services related to leave application for teachers to an online platform.
According to the Commission, this is part of its strategic plan 2019 to 2023 aimed at improving service delivery to employees and stakeholders.
“To achieve this goal, the Commission has successfully automated the leave application and approval process and migrated the same to an online system. To this end, there will be no manual application for all types of leaves effective 1st December 2021,” said Nancy Macharia.
All teachers on TSC payroll, including interns are required henceforth to apply for leave using the online platform.
Teachers who have trouble applying for the leaves have been asked to consult services of the Commissions ICT field officers in their counties.
For now the following nine type of leaves have been put online;
1. Sick Leave
2. Annual Leave
3. Compassionate Leave
4. Paternity Leave
5. Maternity Leave
6. Study Leave
7. Special Leave
8. Adoption Leave
9. Spouse of Diplomat Leave
