A perusal through the policy document by TSC titled, Framework for Entry in the Teaching Service, training for teachers at the university, makes one to expect massive changes in teacher education.

TSC has embarked on a transformative agenda, which will see the framework for entry in the teaching service revised.

“All the 8-4-4 and Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) students must undertake first, Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science courses for a period of three years majoring on the key subjects and, thereafter, undertake a Postgraduate Diploma in Education for a period of one year for teaching at junior and senior school and SNE (Special Needs Education),” the document stipulates.

“Diploma in Education courses for CBC students at each level shall be three years after 8-4-4 and senior school since they will have had time for specialization in the content areas,” the document reads.

Admission into all diplomas and degrees in teacher education courses shall be ”demand-driven”, meaning the number of teachers graduating each year will be controlled.

The Universities’ Academic Staff Union (UASU) has expressed dissatisfaction with the contents of the document.

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“They want to erase the Bachelors of Education programme so that all students just enroll for either Bachelor of Arts or of Science. When they graduate and one is interested in teaching, he or she must return for a postgraduate diploma in education,” said Dr Wilfridah Itolondo, Kenyatta University UASU chapter vice-chairperson.

University lecturers feel this could be a plan to cleverly implement recommendations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on cutting budgets and expenditure in some state corporations, which may involve freezing of new employment or pushing for retrenchments as the qualification for a Sh257 billion loan to Kenya.

According to the union, this move will push thousands of trainers in the faculty of education out of employment.

“In fact, according to us, it might just be one of the measures being taken to address the IMF report,” claimed Dr Itolondo.

The lecturers through their union have vowed to resist any structural changes without involving them.

Kenyatta University UASU chapter secretary, Dr George Lukoye, said whereas they are not opposed to any reforms, they are only demanding to be involved as key stakeholders.

“It is no secret that Kenyatta University is facing high financial risks. These financial risks may have been exacerbated by the Covid-19. The union looks forward to the IMF and the relevant government agencies to carry out a thorough and in-depth forensic audit to ascertain how the university found itself in this financial crisis,” said Dr Lukoye

The university dons and the salaries and remuneration commission, SRC, are yet in another battle over the job evaluation exercise that is in process.

The university teaching staff union, UASU, has strongly opposed the SRC’s job evaluation tool, claiming that it only recognizes their managers and not the lecturers. “The work done by teaching staff will not be duly recognized and rewarded under the evaluation tool being used,” reads a letter addressed by UASU to SRC CEO, Anne Gitau.

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“Under the template, the categorization of responsibilities is aligned to mainly asses managerial responsibility and financial control, which is not in tandem with the mission of public universities of creating and imparting knowledge, undertaking research, and innovation,” cited Constatine Wasonga, UASU secretary general, in his letter to the SRC.

According to Wasonga, the evaluation tool will only benefit heads of departments, deans and directors, whose value is negligible, to the public universities’ mission. He made it clear that professors, associate professors, senior lecturers, lecturers and assistant lecturers are the ones that the evaluation tool should favour more.

UASU complains that the methodology documented in the current SRC circular is not clear.

SRC insisted that their analytical and point -factor based job evaluation models rely on compensable factors to evaluate jobs.  Wasonga on the other hand wants SRC to apply the remeasure job evaluation model, which was designed by the price water house coopers, PWC in the 2021-2025 remuneration review cycle.

In response, Gitau says, “the template can be customized by public sector institutions’ job descriptions analysis committees, during development of job descriptions, for as long as generally accepted standards are adhered to.

There is a possibility that the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) talks between universities and unions will collapse since the unions will certainly reject the evaluation results.

Negotiations between unions and the universities should commence once an advice from SRC is agreed upon by both parties.

Discriminative Job Evaluation

UASU fears that the much awaited job evaluation report by SRC may demoralize the tutors again, just like the previous one. The previous job evaluation by SRC even prejudiced tutors of smaller and newer universities. In one instance, it placed vice chancellors of older universities like Nairobi in job group E5 and their counterparts in newer / smaller universities in job group E4.

The discriminative evaluation report placed Deputy vice chancellors of older universities in job group E4 and the rest in job group E3.