According to the document titled Teacher Professional Development Framework and Roll Out of Structured TPD in Kenya prepared the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), teachers currently employed or serving under the commission and who will not have renewed their teaching certificates by 2027 will automatically be deregistered by TSC.

The implication is that teachers who will not have completed their first module of TPD risk being deregistered and losing their teaching jobs since TSC dictated that teachers should renew their certificates after every five years.

Teachers who want their certificates renewed will have to complete 5 chapters of a module and provided documentary evidence of successful completion.

The teachers’ employer rolled out TPD in September 2021 and the pioneer classes are expected to begin on December 27. One module takes five years to complete hence the implication that by 2027, all currently serving primary and secondary teachers should have completed the first module and renewed their teaching certificates.

Read also:

New: Lists Of December 2021 TSC Promoted Teachers Per County

TSC Sets Professional Teaching Standards Each Teacher Must Acquire Through TPD

TSC gifts 1, 963 teachers with promotions This christmas

How to enroll for TPD training at Mount Kenya University

University Students Hire a Lawyer to Challenge TPD in Court

Updated: List Of Schools That Will Host Junior Secondary Schools Per County Under CBC

Milemba Differs With Misori Over TPD During ADC

KUPPET Denies Errant Branch Officials Salaries Over TPD Disagreement

KEMI Announces Induction And Registration For Teacher Professional Development (TPD) Programme

After the completion of the five chapters of module one and certification, a teacher will proceed to level two.  “Upon commencement of the TPD Programme, all serving teachers will be required to acquire teaching certificates renewable every 5 years while the subsequent applicants for Certificate of Registration will be issued with both certificates,” reads a section of the document.

The TPD framework outlines that the TPD programme will adopt two dimensions; the Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development (TPAD) and Modules prescribed by the commission. Each module will contain five chapters which include professionalism, pedagogy and Competency-based Curriculum (CBC) and inclusive Education practices, Assessment and reporting, comprehensive school health safety and financial literacy skills and instructional leadership for teachers. The teachers will earn 40 marks by fully participating in TPAD and 60 marks from the TPD modules.

While TPD programmes are practised globally and believed to instil continuous skills, the recently launched programme by the Commission has attracted mixed reactions. Some teachers have called for the suspension of the programme, others want the employer to provide funding, while another group is pushing the period of the in-service training to be reduced.

The new roll out of the TPD programme was necessitated by the 21st Century demands for the 21st Century learners who are confronted with increasingly complex social, cultural, economic, technological and global challenges. It was argued that teachers must prepare learners who possess sophisticated, diversified and complementary competencies that will enable them to navigate through these challenges. “Teachers just like other professionals, participate in professional development to learn and apply new knowledge and skills that will improve their competence and leadership capacity through structured programmes developed by a regulator,” reads the document.

Following the shift in the teaching profession, the Commission maintains that they had to develop a TPD Policy Framework which made TPD compulsory to all teachers, made TPD activities a lifelong learning programme carried out in 6 levels and introduced the Kenya Professional Teaching Standards (KePTS) and the use of accredited TPD Service Providers to deliver the programme.

“All TPD programmes organised by the Commission or by accredited service providers will be based on   KePTS , a set of competency standards that describe what a Kenyan teacher should know and be able to do for improved learning outcomes,” adds the document.

TPD programme is structured into six sequential levels corresponding to the competency level of the teachers with   each level having a corresponding TPD Module. The six levels are Knowledge level on the standards (level 1), application level (level 2), mastery level (level 3), mentorship and coaching (level 4), institutional leadership (level 5) and mastery in instructional leadership (level 6).

The Commission states that Level 1 will apply to teachers who have only served for 5 years while Level 6 teachers are the most experienced teachers with competencies to guide young teachers to be instructional leaders.

“Each level will be offered as per the specific module of the level. Each module is designed to add value and improve teachers’ competencies and learner outcomes. TPD Service providers will deliver each module on behalf of TSC,” reads the document.

The Commission notes that TPD activities will be evaluated based on authentic assessment which will include reflective journal, participant led final synthesis and individual Professional Portfolio Development and Presentation. Teachers are expected to enrol and undertake a face-to-face TPD programme session once a year during the school holiday and online TPD sessions during the other two school holidays. The face-to-face sessions will be for a minimum of 40 hours per week and will be undertaken at all sub-county training centres across the country.

Teachers service commission CEO, Nancy Macharia has pledged to give all universities and colleges a chance to offer the mandatory TPD courses to teachers next year, after the lapse of the current contract.

“After the expiry of the present one-year contract, the tender shall be floated again for all institutions to apply,” she said.

This comes after questions were raised on the criteria used to pick only four institutions, with top universities that offer education training being left out.

Only Kenyatta University, Riara University, Mount Kenya University and the KEMI were picked to train the teachers.

Read also:

List Of Schools That Will Host Junior Secondary Schools Per County Under CBC

MKU To Offer Transport, Data Bundles and Stationery To TPD Trainees

Teachers Now Allowed To Pay Ksh. 20 Daily For TPD Modules

All Teachers Directed To Install TPD Mobile App Ahead Of TPD Courses

Teachers Who Fail Consistently in TPD Tests Likely To Be Removed From Payroll

18 MPs Support Milemba’s Petition On TPD, Question TSC’s Intentions Concerning The Modules-see list

TPD Training Institutions To Pay TSC Ksh. 50,000, Among Other Incentives

TSC Reveals Why It Locked Out Other Universities From Offering TPD Modules

She faulted the institutions for failing to bid when a tender to offer teacher professional training courses was floated.

According to Macharia, top universities and institutions that offer education training did not apply for the tender to offer Teacher Professional Development (TPD) courses.

Only eight universities applied, most of which did not meet the necessary requirements to offer TPD courses.

“We advertised and every teacher training institution was free to apply. But only eight universities applied. Some universities, the premier universities, did not even apply,” she said.

“Apart from Kenyatta University, even the University of Nairobi which is another university that offers education did not tender. If something like this is in the open and you do not tender, what can we possibly do?” she posed.

She added that continuous monitoring and evaluation of TPD will be done to ensure quality and receive feedback.

Macharia also said that the institutions will have to establish a center all sub-counties before starting to offer the courses.

“We emphasised that each of the institutions must have a presence at sub-county level because in as much as most part of the sessions would be done virtually, we wanted some part of training to be done face-to-face,” she said.

It emerged that some universities did not tender because they didn’t possess the required documents such as tax compliance papers from the Kenya Revenue Authority and audited accounts.