KISUMU, May 12th -The Board of Management (BOM) of St Mark’s Obambo in Kisumu West SubCounty has resolved to seek legal redress against the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) over what it terms unilateral transfers of head teachers in the Nyanza region, accusing the commission of sidelining stakeholders.
BOM Chairman Gordon Lelo said the decision follows lack of consultation with the teacher management body, which he claimed has effected transfers without due regard for schools’ governance structures.
“We are particularly concerned about the overreaching tendencies of TSC in regard to transfer of principals, which has also been flagged by the leadership of the Anglican Church in Kisumu County,” Lelo lamented.
According to Lelo, the transfer of the school’s former principal has paralysed normal learning activities, with students staging protests in the past 48 hours.
Following a stakeholders’ meeting on Tuesday that brought together 13 board members, the TSC deputy county director, the Kisumu West sub-county director of education, and the deputy county commissioner, the BOM resolved to resume normal learning on Monday, March 18th.
“We have decided to immediately suspend the new principal TSC posted here and have written to them to review the exercise afresh and post another principal,” Lelo announced.
The deputy principal will assume office in an acting capacity until a substantive head teacher is posted.
The move comes barely 24 hours after the area Member of Parliament Roza Buyu declared her intention to seek intervention from the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education to audit and probe the unilateral transfers across Nyanza.
However, TSC commissioner in charge of transfers, Timon Oyucho, defended the exercise, describing it as a normal administrative procedure undertaken twice annually.
“There is a window of appeal TSC grants to affected principals, and the board is bound by law to sit and listen to the appeals within a stipulated timeframe,” Oyucho told Eyes Watch Media.
The uproar over head teacher transfers in Nyanza has escalated, with the presiding Bishop of ACK Maseno South Diocese, Charles Ong’injo, flagging the exercise as flawed.
