State House does not issue teachers’ employment letters; TSC

A statement made by National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula, alleging that Teachers Service Commission (TSC) employment letters are being dished out to Members of Parliament (MPs) at State House, has elicited a nation-wide public debate.

Speaker Wetangula, during a meeting last weekend, appeared to confirm that President William Ruto issues employment letters to MPs and government officials for distribution to their constituents, a statement that made Kenyans to question the fairness and merit of employing teachers in the country.

“There are some MPs who are given as many as 10 teachers’ employment letters. Yet, you later hear that they have been selling those letters,” Wetang’ula said. 

“If someone is struggling, for instance if you are a night nurse, as that mother said, and you are asked to pay KSh400,000 to secure a teacher’s employment letter for your child, where will you get that kind of money? That is immoral, and we cannot accept such leadership.”

Teachers’ unions and lawyers have warned that what Wetangula was attesting to undermines the independence of the TSC.

Other stakeholders have called for Wetangula and the entire TSC Board to resign over the same, to pave the way for impartial investigations to ascertain if the claims are indeed true.

“In a civilized society, people should have taken responsibility by resigning, starting with the Speaker of the National Assembly and the entire board of TSC commissioners and the CEO, to pave the way for impartial investigation. It’s also high time TSC is split to create a regulatory body for teachers, where in such a case the regulator would have disciplined officers at TSC who do such nasty behaviour and violate Standards of Professional Practice and Ethical Conduct,” Ndung’u Wangenye, Secretary, Education Stakeholders Association of Kenya.

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According to Wangenye, the biggest undoing is that today, TSC is both an employer and a regulator. “We don’t expect anything tangible from this unethical behaviour that has sunk TSC to an all-time low in the history of its almost 70 years of existence. This is the lowest we have gone in history. It’s very painful, regrettable, and unfortunate.”

But in a statement, the TSC has dismissed Wetangula’s statement as not only false but also misleading.

According to the Commission, recruitment and employment of registered teachers, including the issuance of employment letters, is a constitutional mandate of the Teachers Service Commission.

Article 237(2)(b) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 provides that the Commission shall “recruit and employ registered teachers.”

Further, Regulations 55 and 56 of the TSC Code of Regulations for Teachers, 2015 provide for the recruitment of teachers and the issuance of Offers of Employment by the Commission.

“Accordingly, all TSC employment letters are issued by the Teachers Service Commission in accordance with the law and applicable recruitment guidelines,” TSC CEO Evaleen Mitei says. “Neither the President nor Members of Parliament have the mandate to issue TSC employment letters.”

TSC has further maintained that it is committed to transparency, fairness and integrity in the recruitment and employment of teachers.

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