The government should avert teachers' strike by all means

Knut secretary general Collins Oyuu. [File, Standard]

The looming teachers’ strike slated to start on August 26, 2024 is a litmus test for the Teachers Service Commission, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the Ministry of Labour and Social Services and the entire national Government machinery, now that it shall be commencing at the beginning of third term in the basic education sector.

The 2024 third term calendar is packed with activities from August 26 to October 25 with only nine weeks within which the programmed activities have to be done to precision.

The summative evaluation for KPSEA and KILEA assessments slated from October 28 to 31st, will come immediately after official closure of both primary and secondary schools. This will be after internal formative assessments of individual schools will have taken two weeks. This will be followed by the KCSE examinations from November 4th to 22nd 2024.

The examinations programs will therefore come after only six weeks of teacher learner contacts through teaching and learning. Teacher training colleges will also be doing their evaluations as they complete their year one training and for those who will be completing their third year course training.

It is in this term of our education calendar that government has the herculean task of ensuring that infrastructure development of an extra classroom in the comprehensive schools to accommodate the grade 9 learners who will be doing their final year at the comprehensive schools and preparing to go to their career schools at senior school is done.

As it is at the moment, it is not clear whether the government, through the education ministry reforms, has categorised senior schools according to the talent, language and social sciences, and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) pillars in readiness for the absorption of the grade 10 learners in 2026.

The success of this education sector is dependent on teachers’ motivation through good pay, adequate staffing, training, tooling and re-tooling. It also depends on motivation anchored on timely promotions, enhanced working environment and adequate reward management.

This is what will make teachers capable of driving the education agenda in the right direction. The promise to improve quality education is anchored on the Kenya Kwanza Education charter where employment and conversion of the 46,000 junior school intern teachers to permanent and pensionable and hiring of 20,000 more teachers to alleviate teacher shortage in schools and address bloated workload to ensure quality education is grounded.

The quest to improve livelihoods of the Kenyan teacher amid hard economic times after the Covid-19 among other calamities the world faced in the recent past, is evident by the 10-7 per cent salary award KNUT secured in the reviewed 2021/2025 CBA, which was a welcome move although it remains the major labour dispute between teachers and the Teachers Service Commission since the second phase, which was to be paid to teachers by July 31, 2024, has not been honored according to the signed pact schedule 6.1 of the CBA 2021/2025 on the obligations of the employer.

KNUT has always wanted to have a smooth working relationship with both the teachers’ employer and other social partners. It is in this light that KNUT wrote to TSC on August 5, 2024 requesting that a meeting be held to address, among other labor issues; the non-payment of the second phase of the 10 to 7 per cent salary award in the reviewed 2021/2025 CBA.

The commission responded the following day, indicating that it was conducting internal consultations on the issues raised and that it would respond in due course. Seven days later,  there has been no communication from the commission on the way forward. The union again wrote to the commission on August 12, 2024 reminding it of the initial request, but there was no response again.

The union is left with no other options other than registering a labour dispute with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and proceeding to industrial action as provided for by the labour relations act 2007 and other relevant laws. The union did that in a letter to the Labour and Social Protections CS dated August 14, 2024. The forthcoming teachers’ strike is therefore protected by law.

Since the commission showed no commitment to utilise the existing conflict resolutions mechanisms, which include but are not limited to having a round table discussion to address matters at hand as had been requested for by the union’s letter dated August 5 2024.

The union has therefore called upon all its members to come out on August 26, 2024 and demand for their rights peaceably and unarmed as provided for by Article 37 of the Kenya Constitution by boycotting work until such a time that we shall advise accordingly.

Government however, can avert this strike by honoring the signed CBA 2021/2025 through sourcing funds across the other government vote heads by or before midnight August 25, 2024. The CBA 2021/2025 has no relationship with the ongoing government restructuring measures towards reducing public expenditure.

Teachers will only listen to the voice of money in their respective accounts by or before August 26, 2024.

Additionally, this strike gives both the Teachers Service Commission and government an opportunity to redeem themselves on building public confidence with workers over CBA implementation and binding promises.