Female teachers are now eligible to a fully paid four months’ maternity leave exclusive of annual leave, following Teachers Service Commission (TSC) partial fulfilment of the 2021-2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
They will now enjoy 120 and 21 days of maternity and paternity leaves, respectively with full pay.
TSC Secretary Nancy Macharia said female teachers will be entitled to the enhanced leave days with effect from the date of delivery and should not forfeit their annual leave on account of having taken maternity leave.
“A male teacher will be eligible for paternity leave of 21 calendar days with full pay once a year within the duration of the spouse’s maternity leave,” said Macharia in a circular to all teachers.
Teachers who adopt children will also enjoy a 45-day paid leave after the commission announced a new enhanced package that will make tutors have one of the best maternity packages in the civil service.
This is less than a year after President Uhuru Kenyatta signed the Employment (Amendment) Bill of 2019 which allows adoptive parents to have paid leave days under the law.
However, the changes exclude parents of children born through surrogacy after Kenyatta declined the provision on the grounds that Kenya lacks a substantive legal and regulatory framework to protect all parties involved in the surrogacy arrangement.
Kenyan law provides fathers with a fully paid two-week paternity leave and those who nurse their own pregnancies with a three-month maternity leave.
Teachers were previously entitled to a 90-day maternity and 14-day paternity leaves. She said the commission has migrated services related to leave applications for teachers to an online platform.
TSC says the Human Resource Management Information System leave module for teachers was effected from last November and the application process has been seamless.
