BY THE STAR: TSC Teachers Transfers: About 5,000 school heads and teachers will report to new institutions in January, as the Teachers Service Commission on Friday commenced the third phase of transfers this year. The move is expected to revive wars between the TSC and teachers’ unions.

The transfers will affect more than 3,000 institutions. It targets 195 long-serving school principals, deputy principals and thousands of teachers who operate within their locality and those who have served in one institution for more than nine years.

Those transferred are expected to report to their new stations next year as schools reopen. Schools will close next Friday, October 26. The first term will start on January 2.

Also to be shifted are secondary school heads managing the county and subcounty schools, who were not affected in the first and second phase of the transfers. Sources say the TSC has turned a deaf ear to the presidential directive that ordered the Education ministry to review the delocalisation programme.

The sources say a team formed by Education CS Amina Mohamed to look into the transfers is yet to table a report with recommendations on how transfers should be handled.

Following the uproar and opposition by teachers and unions, Uhuru had directed the TSC to ensure moving teachers will not hurt families.

Kenya National Union of Teachers secretary general Wilson Sossion said the transfers amount to workplace bullying.

“The position of the union is quite clear. We oppose transfers because they do not conform to the ILO practice standards put in place by Unesco that champion for teachers to teach in their locality,” Sossion said.

The TSC, in defence of the transfers, says the policy aims to ensure fresh ideas are infused into institutions after the long stay of some head teachers. It aims to promote diversity and ensure teachers do not get too cozy with a community.

The TSC says the transfers conform to the Code of Regulations for Teachers and CBAs signed between the TSC and teachers’ unions. In the first phase of the transfers, TSC delocalised 10,000 teacher.

A second phase targeted 6,000 teachers.
Knut has threatened to call a strike if the commission does not rescind the delocalisation policy.