There could be a shutdown of public schools in the country as Kuppet, the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers, and Knut, the Kenya National Union of Teachers, plan a strike over salary increment demands that have been ignored. The unions want the second phase of the 2021-2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement, due for implementation in July, honored.
Kuppet announced plans for the National Governing Council with the view to deliberate the course of action in industrial action starting September. This is in respect to demands for employment of 20,000 new teachers and conversion of 46,000 interns to permanent and pensionable.
According to Secretary-General Collins Oyuu, the CBA is binding. He castigated the Treasury for not providing adequate funds to the TSC to undertake its responsibilities. The jucies have been hard hit by reducing Sh10 billion from the TSC budget, terming this move as contradictory to the CBA.
Couple that discontent with the government’s slashing by 24% the funding towards Free Day Secondary School capitation, contrary to calls for a rise to cushion it against inflation. Kuppet sharply blasted the budgetary cuts as unprecedented and tantamount to the infamous Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 1980s.
These grievances portray an important strain between the tutors and the government, with looming strike action threatening to cripple learning in public schools as the new term starts.