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NEWS & CURRENT AFFAIRS

The Nairobian

Schools opening, national exams in jeopardy as teachers threaten to strike

Education

By Lewis Nyaundi | Aug 08, 2024

When intern teachers staged protests against the Teachers Service Commission demanding their confirmation on May 16, 2024. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

Schools may not reopen for a third term after two teachers' unions issued a one-week strike notice that could also paralyse preparations for the national examinations.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) and the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) said their members will not report when schools open in three weeks.

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Addressing a joint press briefing in Nairobi, on Wednesday, the unions listed six demands, including better pay and terms for intern teachers which they want addressed before reporting back to school.

Other demands are the promotion of 130,000 teachers which they said is long overdue and the employment of 20,000 interns to support teaching and learning in Junior Secondary School (JSS).

“Given the weight of these grievances and their impact on the stability of the education sector, Kuppet and Knut have today given the TSC seven days to address each of these, failure to which we will set in motion plans for a nationwide strike starting Monday, August 26,” said Knut secretary general Collins Oyuu.

Kuppet secretary general Akello Misori, raised concern over the teacher's medical cover saying it was under threat due to substantive budget cuts.

Misori noted that the government has only allocated Sh15 billion for the medical cover despite the cost of implementation valued at Sh20.9 billion.

He lamented that the teacher's cover had been watered down removing some critical benefits such as the group-life cover.

The unions also accused the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) of failure to remit loans and National Social Security Fund deductions. “Since July TSC has not remitted loans owned to financial institutions where our members borrowed money,” Misori said

He also took issue with the TSC's delay to start of new round of negotiations on the 2025-2030 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

“Less than one year to the termination of the 2021-2025 CBA, the commission is still buying time on the new CBA round… we need a structured platform to negotiate these issues,” Misori said.

If the unions make good their threat, it will be the first nationwide strike in nearly a decade when teachers downed their tools for a month between September and October 2015.

With the third term being the shortest in the school calendar, set to run for only nine weeks, the ripple effect of the strike could hamper preparation for national examinations and assessments.

The strike also threatens the completion of the syllabus and will be the third time schools are facing disruption this year.

This will be after the floods hampered the reopening of schools in April and the on-and-off disruption occasioned by the anti-government protests that have rocked the country since June.

The unions also accused the employer of failure to implement increased pay for members as dictated under the 2021-2025 CBA.

The unions called for the full implementation of the 2021/2025 CBA which was signed in June 2021 and amended in August 2023.

Oyuu said teachers were set to receive a second round of salary increments beginning July under the CBA implementation plan and was estimated to cost Sh13.4 billion.

“The commission is in breach of the agreement after failing to implement the second part of the agreement. We demand implementation of the agreement,” he said.

He protested the delay in the conversion of JSS intern teachers to permanent and pensionable terms

“The conversion should have been done in July thus we demand the confirmation and the remittance of their full salaries for the month which are now in arrears,” Oyuu said.

To curb the teacher shortage in JSS, Knut further called on the government to honour its pledge to employ 20,000 more intern teachers.

“Our teachers are angry and hungry. TSC has neglected its mandate thus we are joining forces to push for six issues if not addressed hell will break loose,” Oyuu said.