TSC Offers Law Review To Strengthen TPD And Increase Entry Requirement.
In 2019, the Labour Court suspended the continuing Teacher Professional Development (TPD) program. The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has launched an attempt to resurrect the program.
The Commission is attempting to solidify TPD’s regulatory role by implementing the modifications outlined in TSC Amendment Bill 2024, which was submitted to Parliament.
The proposed modifications aim to address the gaps that the Labour Court pointed out when it put a stop to the program’s execution.
The TPD program was found to be unregulated in 2019 and, as a result, to lack a legitimate implementation matrix by the court.
TSC CEO Nancy Macharia disclosed that the commission would foot the cost for the ongoing training program, stating that the commission has asked for an extra Sh 3.2 billion to fund the program’s implementation.
This, however, will require the MPs’ consent.
Wanjiku has been advocating more and more that the program’s cost be covered by the employer. We will make sure to pay teachers as soon as we receive these cash,” Macharia stated on Friday.
Annual Reprieve
Teachers were required to pay Sh6,000 for each module they administered during school breaks under the contested arrangement.
Cavin Anyuor, the director of legal affairs at TSC, stated that most professionals engage in ongoing professional development to guarantee their ability to adjust to the challenges that the education sector faces in the twenty-first century.
“We are providing our teachers with refresher training in 21st-century abilities through a series of brief workshops. Every year, you must complete this course on ongoing professional development in order to obtain your practicing certificate, according to Anyour.
The proposed TSC modifications would forbid teachers from teaching at both public and private universities if they do not participate in the required continuing professional development programs.
Anyuor said, “We want to professionalize this provision so that it looks like any other profession in the world and we are trying to make it attractive and appropriate.”
The changes also suggest renewing professional certifications annually, as opposed to the original suggestion of doing so every five years.
Who will be in charge of the training will be the point of dispute. TSC signed an annual contract with four institutions for the initiative that was halted.
Kenya Education Management Institute, Riara, Mount Kenya University, and Kenyatta University are the four.
To organize teacher professional development, the Presidential Working Party suggested creating the Kenya School of Teacher and Education Management (KeSTEM).
Entry-level prerequisite
A turf war between teachers’ unions and other stakeholders is also expected to be sparked by TSC’s proposed revisions, which aim to evaluate the prerequisites for entering teacher training programs.
The Commission recommended that the new education curriculum increase the minimum criteria for teacher training.
Students can currently enter the field if they received a D on their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam.
Macharia said, “They say the quality of education is commensurate to the quality of teachers.”
By improving the teaching qualification for the international job market, the updated qualification framework seeks to elevate the status of the profession.
Anyuor contended, “Teaching is the mother of all professions; you want to produce an engineer or a pilot who will not take us to sea, but you want the quality of the teacher to be low.”
TSC Offers Law Review To Strengthen TPD And Increase Entry Requirement.
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