Blow to TSC as court declines to suspend order on promotion

A judge on Friday declined to suspend a decision issued a fortnight ago that stopped new career progression rules to guide teachers’ promotions, pending an appeal the Teachers Service Commission intends to file.
Instead, Justice Byram Ongaya directed TSC to convene validation meetings to finalise the performance measurement tools and roll out the pogramme.
The Judge said he could not issue a blanket order stopping his decision because the matter was no longer before him and if the employer was not satisfied, the best thing to do was to appeal against the judgment.
He said the TSC had failed to convince him as to how stopping the implementation of the performance appraisal tool would paralyse its operations.
PARALYSE OPERATIONS
TSC sought to stop the decision arguing that its operations would be completely paralysed and execution of its mandate hampered.
In an affidavit, TSC’s Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia argued that suspending the performance management tools is an affront of public interest as it makes employed teachers not to be accountable in exercising their duty.
The commission argued that the decision violates the constitution and the Public Finance Management Act which requires prudent use of public funds and affects the right to education.
She said the suspension would affect the roll out of the programme and make TSC incur financial losses and breach of contract.
PROGRESSION
On promotions, TSC argued that if its promotes all unionisable teachers eligible to join Knut in accordance with the schemes of service, the gains of the teachers CBA, if implemented, will be crippled owing to the quashing of the career progression guidelines.
But Justice Ongaya dismissed the arguments saying he could not sit on an appeal against a decision he made.
In the judgment two weeks ago, Justice Ongaya directed TSC to undertake transfer of teachers being members but non-officials of Knut in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Regulations of Teachers.
The judge added that teachers, being non-institutional administrators and being Knut officials, shall be transferred within respective geographical areas where they were elected.




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