Sh364m budget cut will cripple TSC, Macharia tells MPs

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has objected to the National Treasury's decision to cut its budget by Sh364 million in supplementary estimates presented in Parliament.

While explaining that Sh310 million will be cut from the recurrent expenditure and Sh54 million from development, the TSC's Chief Executive Officer, Nancy Macharia, noted that this is the entire development budget.

“The budget cuts will adversely affect operations in discharge of the commission’s mandate and the quality of education in our schools,” Mrs Macharia told the National Assembly’s Education committee, chaired by Tinderet MP Julius Melly.

Disciplinary cases will also be affected as they will take longer to conclude, increasing the time teachers will spend out of class and affecting coverage of the syllabus.

Ms Macharia further said the TSC will be unable to carry out teacher performance appraisal and development (TPAD), leading to poor assessment of compliance to standards.

The TSC is also worried that induction of heads of institutions and boards on issues of coaching and mentorship, professional ethics, integrity and general administration of learning institutions will be affected.

“General monitoring of teaching and learning by county staff is also going to be affected due to reduced domestic travel, fuel and motor vehicles maintenance allocations,” the chief executive said.

ABSORPTION

The commission was allocated Sh252.8 billion this financial year, Sh251 billion being for salaries and Sh1.7 billion for operations and maintenance.

It said absorption for salaries stood at 91 per cent while for operation and maintenance stood at 80 per cent.

“The under-absorption on compensation to employees in the quarter was occasioned by access to the full-year allocation for teachers and secretariat staff and medical insurance expenses to be paid once the procurement process is concluded," she said.

"(It was also occasioned by) the allocation for recruitment of 5,000 teachers to address 100 per cent transition. The teachers had been recruited but had not been put on the payroll by the end of the quarter."

A total of 50,000 teachers were trained on professionalism and integrity, she added.

CAPACITY

Ms Macharia noted that several programmes have been affected by the supplementary budget, among them teacher capacity development, which targeted 300,000 tutors.

“The funds were to cater for the ongoing construction of the Bomet County office accommodation. There are two pending certificates totalling Sh10.2 million, which cannot be processed due to lack of funds," she said.

"The project is still ongoing but no certificate will be paid unless funds are allocated."

Ms Macharia said the Kenya Secondary Education Quality Improvement Project (SEQIP) is a donor funded project that requires the commission to achieve certain disbursement-linked indicators.

However, the project was not allocated any funds in the printed estimates and that this affected implementation of planned activities.

The activities will be restarted since the funding was captured in the supplementary budget, she said.

INTERNS

Regarding internship, Mrs Macharia said Sh1.2 billion was set aside for the recruitment of 10,000 teachers.

MPs Omboko Milemba (Emuhaya) and Wilson Sossion (ODM nominated) raised concerns about tutors' pay, saying it will be too little.

Mr Sossion also said there were no proper consultations on recruitment of interns as the policy was developed only by the TSC.

But Ms Macharia said the interns will only be paid what is available due to budgetary constraints. The trainee teachers will be in school by January as interviews are ongoing in the counties.

The commission said 102,918 trained but jobless teachers applied for the 10,300 internship positions, with 97,736 applying to teach in secondary schools and 5,182 in primary.

A total of 4,300 of those who qualify will be deployed to primary and 6,000 to secondary schools.

The huge recruitment drive is a desperate shot at easing a severe teacher shortage in the basic education sector, currently standing at more than 100,000.