President William Ruto has urged teachers to reconsider their decision to strike stating that the government has provided the necessary resources to fulfill their demands.
Speaking during a Presidential town hall meeting in Kisumu, the President assured that funds have been allocated to meet the terms agreed upon in the 2021-2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and teachers.
“Some unions want to incite teachers to go on strike on a matter that we have already sorted. We have allocated money for the CBA negotiated between the TSC and teachers,” said Ruto
“By today or tomorrow every teacher will have their salaries and arrears paid accordance to the signed CBA. There is absolutely no justification for anyone to tell teachers to go on strike,” he added.
The ongoing teachers’ strike, led by the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) entered day four on Thursday despite efforts between the union and TSC to end the industrial action.
TSC is now demanding that secondary school teachers call off their strike before any further negotiations can proceed.
This follows a request from KUPPET to meet with the commission on Thursday afternoon to discuss a return-to-work formula.
Confirmation of intern teachers
President Ruto has also pledged to confirm the employment of the current 46,000 intern teachers within the next two months.
While acknowledging the challenge of teacher shortage in the country, the President explained the government’s decision to hire teacher interns rather than offering them jobs on permanent and pensionable terms.
“We have a big shortage of teachers and we also have a big pool of trained teachers and schools that have no teachers. If I had decided to hire teachers on permanent and pensionable terms, I could only have employed 12,000 or 13,000. Instead, I chose to hire this large pool of unemployed teachers as interns, with the guarantee that after two years of internship, they will secure permanent and pensionable positions,” Ruto explained.
