Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers’ blame Teachers Service Commission on pay problems

By Eric Lungai

VIHIGA, KENYA: The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers’ in Vihiga has urged its members to stay away from classes until  the government addresses their grievances.

The union said that they are not heeding to any form of threats from the government or any other person because if they go to classes, it will mean the end of championing for their duly rights.

Led by the Kuppet officials from the region, Chairperson Mr Nerbet Isambe and the executive secretary Mr Nixon Amendi, the leaders said that they will not allow their members to be cheated into false promises again.

“TSC has failed to honour the MOU that they signed with Kuppet last year that advocated for a return to work formula. We want the relevant committees to fast track the harmonisation of teachers’ allowances or we don’t teach,” said Mr Isambe.

Addressing journalists in his office at Mbale on Sunday, the leaders asked their National office to line up their lawyers so that they can interrogate the TSC proposals to the budgetary committee on pay and recruitment of teachers.

“It seems that the TSC is abdicating its roles to the unions because it does not make the relevant proposals to the government and thus it should be interrogated,” said Amendi.

He further noted that this year alone, they are likely to lose over 30 000 teachers through retirement alone, others are likely to join the county governments, and some may be lost through natural attrition, and thus the shortage should be addressed.

The leaders said that they will continue to ask the government to harmonise the salaries of teachers to be in line with other civil servants in the country.

“Knut is fighting for a legal notice and thus they have to go through the legal process. We put our views to the budgetary committee and they have not included it in the budget, and thus the only way to solve the problem is through the strike,” said Amendi.

In a memorandum of agreement signed by TSC and Kuppet on October 1, 2013, teachers had agreed to go back to work after last year’s strike on condition that their allowances were going to be factored in the national budget for the financial year 2013/2014.

This has since not been honoured and thus prompted teachers to go on strike.