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No, Kenya’s teacher employer isn’t funding professional development courses by cutting teachers’ leave

The headline of an article shared on Facebook claims Kenya’s Teachers Service Commission (TSC), which employs teachers, has cut teachers’ leave to pay for training.

The link to the article shows a photo of the commission’s head, Dr Nancy Macharia, and the headline: “Teachers Annual leave allowance to be slashed for TPD training – TSC confirms – News Kali.”

News Kali is the news blog that published the article, last updated 22 November 2021. It claims the commission “sought feedback from stakeholders” on how to improve the teacher professional development programme, or TPD.  

The article says “the proposals issued include reducing the annual leave allowance for TPD training to reduce the pinch of payment from the monthly salary of teachers”. 

Has the commission said that it would slash Kenyan teachers’ annual leave allowances to finance professional development courses?

TeacherLeave_False

TPD programme rejected

On 14 July 2021, the commission announced that all Kenyan teachers must enroll in TPD courses. The commission said teachers in both public and private schools had to do the compulsory modules during the holidays at their own cost.

Teachers rejected the move and said the suggestion they were unqualified to teach the competence-based curriculum was insulting.

The teachers asked the commission to foot the costs of the courses, pay the trainers, and increase teachers’ salaries as they completed modules.

Despite these objections, the programme was rolled out on 22 September. 

On 27 September education consultant Joseph Ng’ethe Karanja filed a petition in court against the teachers services commission on the grounds that the programme was unconstitutional and “an affront to teachers fair labour practices”.  

In October, the court approved the mandatory TPD training as Karanja’s case proceeded to hearing.

Rumours untrue

We could not find any recent response to or comment on the issue on the commission’s Facebook and Twitter accounts or website

But on 12 November 2021 the commission dismissed the widely circulated reports.

It shared a screenshot of a similar article on Twitter, stamped “FAKE”.

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