Kenya: Hire Teachers Or Face Strike, Knut Tells State

TEACHERS have told the government to allocate money for hiring teachers or prepare for a national strike in seven days. The Knut said it was disappointed by the 2011/2012 budget as it failed to allocate any money for the hiring of teachers.

Union boss David Osiany said despite setting a target to employ 28,000 teachers by 2012, the government decided not to allocate money in this year's estimates. "It is obvious the government has overlooked the current teachers deficit that is now taking its toll on the quality of education and we cannot just sit and watch as education standards are compromised," Osiany said.

He said the union wrote to Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta asking him to provide funds in this year's budget to employ 28,000 teachers and demanded that the 18,000 teachers on contract be absorbed on permanent terms. "It is an accepted truth that there is a shortage of teachers and the government admits as much. It is therefore logical for the union to make such a proposal and we expected that such a sensible request would receive positive consideration. However, we are shocked it never received attention in the budget estimates," Wilson Sossion, the union's chairman told reporters.

He said despite having targeted to mainstream early childhood education two years ago, no step has been taken to recruit the nursery school teachers. "We are not convinced that there are any substantive reasons for such an important programme to have been left out of this year's budget," Sossion said.

The union officials also expressed concern over failure by the ministry to allocate money towards salary awards to teachers who retired in 1997. The teachers who had not benefitted from the salary increase then had moved to court to demand that they benefit from the 1997 salary award.

Osiany said a joint meeting between the union, TSC, Ministry of Education and that of Finance had agreed that the retired teachers be paid their pension in arrears in two splits. The two installments were to commence from the first day of next month and the final installments paid by July 1 next year. "The union is concerned that these teachers may be subjected to further delay because the estimates do not reflect a provision for settlement of their dues," he said.