Secondary schools teachers took to the streets for the third day of the nationwide strike to press demands they had put forward. In Mombasa, the teachers at Serani Secondary School stayed away from class as students attended group discussions and did some self-study, while their umbrella body insisted that schools could reopen later in the week as the amended budget is approved with the salary rise included. This has been a tug-of-war between the government and the teachers’ union in the standoff over the teachers’ demand for increased pay.
In Machakos, it got more dramatic; the teachers took to the streets in processions and this made the police intervene to maintain law and order. Members of the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers-KUPPET-led by Secretary General Musembi Katuku and Chairman Bernard Warui, kept vigil at the school gates to ensure strike is complied with. They stormed Baptist Primary and Machakos Girls High Schools, accusing some teachers of secretly working despite the strike.
Katuku said that only 10% of the schools in Machakos County had teachers, and reiterated that the strike would go on. He further threatened that those teachers who would go against the union’s directives would be dealt with severely. Although there were reports that the court had issued an order for the suspension of the strike, Katuku maintained that they had not received the official communication, but had only read about the order in newspapers.