TSC launches teachers appraisal in Murang’a County

The Teachers Service Commission on Thursday began a process to appraise teachers by having them sign performance contracts to improve academic excellence.

According to Murang’a county TSC director Ibrahim Adan, the exercise to be rolled out Monday next week will be used as basis for teachers’ promotion and training.

“The commission is trying its best to ensure that promotion and deployment of teacher to higher positions is based on performance indicators,” said Adan

“The Teachers Service Commission branch in Murang’a County is now setting the stage by kicking off the exercise next week.

“All the gaps in the teaching profession can be closed once we implement the performance contract system among the teachers,” added Adan

Late last year, the Teachers Service Commission announced that all teachers would have to undergo a process of appraisal that will determine their human resource interactions with the employer.

In the performance contract signing, teachers in consultation with TSC officials will set targets for the year that will be matched against their performance at the end of the year.

While releasing the KCPE results last week, education CS Dr Fred Matiang’i noted that public primary schools posted a decline of seven points, blaming it on teacher absenteeism in most of the schools.

TSC is however confident that such occurrences will be resolved with performance appraisal and contracting as two critical tools in making sure that teachers carry out their duties effectively and efficiently.

During the teachers strike in September last year, teachers were opposed to job evaluation that TSC insisted would be the basis for any salary review.

Even though it is yet to be determined if job evaluation will be undertaken, the teachers appraisal and performance contracting seems unavoidable with head teachers in Murang’a County now expected to start the process in schools.

For years, teachers have been opposed to policies targeted at appraising their performance, often times arguing that they could easily be assessed in the results posted by their schools in national examinations.

Teachers unions have also opposed the signing of performance contracts even as the Ministry of Education said absenteeism had negatively affected performance of students in national examinations.