Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Chairman Dr Jamleck Muturi when he appeared before the National Assembly Committee on Education at Parliament Buildings. PHOTO | NMG
Parliament has directed the teacher’s employer to effect transfers of 14,733 tutors who were forced out of their homes through the controversial policy on delocalisation.
The National Assembly’s Education committee gave the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) a deadline of January 31, 2023, to complete the process of returning teachers who were delocalised to their homes.
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The TSC told MPs that it had by November received applications from 14,733 teachers seeking to be transferred.
“I direct that you table before this committee the status report on the transfers by January 15 and the teachers who are seeking to move be transferred by January 31, 2023,” Julius Melly, who chairs the committee told the TSC.
The TSC in 2017 effected the transfers where newly recruited teachers were posted outside their county of employment.
But in 2018, the TSC extended the policy to school headteachers and principals triggering an uproar and standoff between teachers’ unions and their employers.
The policy makes it difficult for delocalised teachers to be transferred back home. The policy requires a delocalised teacher to have completed at least three years in the North Eastern region and at least five years in other regions.
Attempts by the TSC to have the committee allow the commission to determine the transfers of the 14,733 teachers on a case-by-case basis were rejected by Mr Melly.
Mr Melly told the TSC director for Legal Cavin Anyuor and commission chairperson Jamleck Muturi to heed the directive of the committee.
He said Parliament passed a motion last month stopping the delocalisation of teachers by the commission.
Mr Muturi had defended the delocalisation arguing it is contained in the TSC policy document on transfers of teachers.
“As TSC, we will address issues of delocalisation and take care of teachers' requests. But we must also discharge our constitutional mandate to staff schools across the country,” Mr Muturi said.
Mr Melly dismissed the TSC plea arguing that the policy the TSC used to transfer teachers from the home counties is obsolete.
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“By January 31, we want to see that any teacher who asked for the reversal of their delocalisation must have been allowed to transfer,” Mr Melly said.
Lawmakers last month approved a motion asking TSC to halt the delocalisation of teachers countrywide and comprehensively review its redeployment policy.
Lurambi MP Titus Khamala sponsored the motion which sought an immediate reversal of the delocalisation of teachers.
The MP argued that the delocalisation had disrupted the lives of teachers, lowered their morale and caused untold trauma to many.
He said the delocalisation exercise was not supported with a clear policy framework and was initiated without the participation of teachers or their unions, contrary to Articles 118 and 132 of the Constitution on public participation and involvement of the people in the process of policymaking.
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