The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) CEO Dr. Nancy Njeri Macharia’s term comes to an end tomorrow amid uncertainity on whether it will be renewed for another five years or not since the constitution allows.
Her term ends tomorrow but the president has an opportunity to renew it for another five years.
Having served for five years and brought numerous changes which have been received with mixed reactions the CEO will wait to see which side the wind blows. But what’s raising eyebrows is the recent activities by Law Society of Kenya (LSK) which is seeking to block the CEO of the biggest teacher employer from securing a second term.
LSK through its chair Mr Nelson Havi is seeking to stop Dr. Nancy Macharia from getting another five year term citing unsatisfactory performance.
“The information we have is that there are plans to renew her five-year contract for a further five years without subjecting the position to a competitive recruitment process,” reads the letter dated June 29 by LSK to the Attorney general. Though the CEO term is renewable for another five years its not automatic but subjected to satisfactory perfomance.
Since taking office from Gabriel Loghoibon (the former CEO) a lot of changes has taken place in the commission. In 2014 automatic promotion of teachers based on Schemes of Service (SOS) were halted and replaced with Career Progression guidelines for teachers (CPG) which saw thousands of teachers getting automatic promotion to next job groups. Most of those teachers who enjoyed this promotion included more than a hundred thousand P1 teachers who were in job group G and which was abolished and replaced with B5 under the new structure.
In 2017 Dr. Nancy Macharia and Knut secretary general Wilson Sossion together with the then Knut chairman Mudzo Nzili witnessed signing of a CBA that would help bring industrial harmony. The CBA which runs from 2017 to 2021 saw school administrators getting huge perks as they are now placed in a cadre reserved only for administrators and which is now very competitive as described in the Career progression Guidelines for teachers. The CBA which comes to an end this July is one of Dr. Nancy’s biggest achievement as it sought to quell the perennial teachers strikes.
However Dr. Nancy Macharias term did not end without displeasures and controversies. In April last year one hundred and sixty teachers got interdicted out of which forty two got dismissed from service after a call by Knut secretatry general Wilson Sossion to boycott CBC training turned chaotic and physical eviction of teachers from the training centres. Most of them were Knut branch secretaries, Chairmen, Women representatives and BEC’s. But a good number totaling one hundred and twenty eight had their cases heard and concluded with a favorable verdict as they were all reinstated.
A month ago TSC through its social media handles advised teachers to ignore fake news that purpoted to report the TSC CEO to have been replaced by Kennedy Mulunda and that she was on leave.
Dr Kennedy Mulunda was appointed as Deputy Commission Secretary and is the second in command after Dr. Nancy Macharia.
The TSC CEO has been at loggerheads with Knut Secretary Wilson Sossion. Mr. Sossion who was deregistered and unsuccessfully contested his deregistration in the labour and relations court has in many times appeared to suggest Dr. Nancy Macharias term shouldn’t be renewed. Mr. Sossion also presented a suggestion to the BBI team to have TSC abandoned and made a department of the Ministry of education. This suggestion was rejected by the BBI team who affirmed that TSC is a commission anchored in the constitution and that the suggestion did not hold any water.