The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Curriculum Support Officers (CSO) have warned teachers who have not submitted their term three appraisals.
The Commission is expected to close the Teacher Performance Appraisal Development (TPAD) portal by midnight today and teachers including school administrators are required to appraise and submit their ratings early before the dateline.
Teachers who fail to take part in TPAD risk being issued with show cause and warning letters among other disciplinary actions.
In the recently updated TPAD portal the Commission has also allowed teachers to enroll and choose their preferred Teacher Professional Development (TPD) service provider.
Currently Egerton University is listed as the sole TPD service provider in the portal. Teachers can also choose the mode of training as well as the training venues.
According to TPAD calendar of activities teachers should Plan meetings before school opening involving all staff to set school TPAD Activity calendar.
The meeting should happen during the last week of school holiday and attended by all teachers including the school head.
Heads of institution should ensure teachers avail their professional documents for approval during the first week after reopening.
From the second week teachers (appraisees and appraisers) should start undertaking lesson observations and identifying and documenting teacher’s professional gaps. This is a continuous process going through to tenth week.
Teachers should also activate their TPAD account on time once its opened for access.
Teachers who do not take part in the appraisal process will not be considered for promotion, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) said.
According to TSC, teachers who do not fill the performance appraisal forms will be overlooked in case of any chance for promotion.
“The implementation of tools, processes and procedures for performance management are disadvantageous to teachers who are members of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut). This is because they stand no chance of being considered for promotion when their time is due since promotion is linked to performance appraisal,” says TSC.
The teachers’ employer said the appraisal system has been in place since 2016 on pilot basis, and running without being contested by any teachers union.
The Commission clarifications on TPAD:
I. Performance Contract (PC): Performance Contract for heads of primary and secondary institutions is available on the TSC website.
The heads of institution are required to follow the PC calendar of activities which also provides that the PC should be downloaded and signed as required.
Once this has been done, the heads of institution are required to develop the Operational workplan which can be done on the TPAD online system.
2. Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development (TPAD): Due to the complexities caused by the design of the TPAD online system, it has been decided that all data, for both term 2 and term 3 be done on Term 2 2021.
This means that teachers teaching grade 4, class 8 and form 4 can input the data on learners’ progress on the term 2 2021 portal and not on term 3 2021 as had earlier been communicated in the memo.
The Heads of institution are required to customize the TPAD calendar provided in the TPAD on line system and share these requirements with the teachers when the schools were opened.
4. Lesson Observation: The TPAD online system provides for lesson observation which should be done at least once a term.
5. Missing schools: A list of schools missing from the TPAD system in respective Counties should be submitted to the Commission.
6. Mapping of schools: All teachers should be mapped in their respective schools, zones, sub counties and counties respectively
These rights have been assigned to the County Director and the County ICT officers.
7. A list of teachers yet to appear on TPAD online system should be submitted to the Commission with their TSC numbers and work stations.
Teachers should also create their TPAD accounts and this will remedy this situation.
8. Schools with no administrators: The County Director should assign rights to teachers to act as deputies and heads of institution so as to ensure that the appraisal process is completed at the school level.
9. Cancellation is done when there is inconsistency in the marks allocated and when there is suspicion of collusion between the appraiser and appraisee and is only carried out by the countersigning officer.
There have been cases where the teachers have complained about the cancellation of their appraisals. Therefore, this function should always be done with utmost care and fairness.
10. Reversal: This option has been provided to TSC TPAD system administrators who can reverse a ‘not on duty’ procedure and also the appraisal especially when the teacher has chosen the wrong standards.
a. However, there have been many cases of not on duty which requires the teacher to indicate reasons why they are not on duty such as leaves.
It should be emphasized that the not on duty procedure is not a one off button and therefore cannot be chosen by mistake.
Therefore, teachers should be asked to be keen as they fill in the appraisal.
b. Also recorded are the cases of teachers who have chosen the SNE standards.
Once the case is checked, it is noted that the teachers have already been appraised and even have a TPAD score.
Once an appraisal has been rated by the appraiser it cannot be reversed
