Strike looms as Knut tells State to prepare for 'an epic battle'

KNUT Secretary General (right) and Chairman Mudzo Nzili. (Photo: Willis Awandu/Standard)

Teachers will be asked by their officials tomorrow to approve a nationwide strike next month to press for higher pay, promotion of 53,000 tutors and recruitment of 40,000 others.

Demands for a post graduate scheme of service for teachers with Masters and PhD qualifications, reversal of a Government directive to abolish ranking of schools and candidates after national examinations and implementation of a report on secondary school fees are among the resolutions to be considered.

"Ranking of schools should not be discarded in national examinations," a Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) National Executive Council (NEC) report reads in part.

"Unless they tell us the alternatives they have put in place to ensure teachers and schools management are held to account for performance and quality teaching we shall oppose it," said Knut Secretary General Wilson Sossion.

"There will be regular review and recasting of school performance merit measuring tools and therefore ranking of schools and students on basis of national examination results is discontinued with immediate effect," reads the Education ministry's circular dated November 24, 2014. The document says that implementation of the new directives takes effect on January 1, 2015.

NEC has endorsed the proposals that will be put to a vote during the three-day Annual Delegates Conference (ADC) that opened in Nairobi yesterday.

Knut Secretary General Wilson Sossion yesterday said told the Government to prepare for "an epic battle" once delegates endorse the strike call on Tuesday.

Should the 57th ADC adopt the resolutions, the school calendar will be disrupted as the strike will coincide with the reopening of schools in January for first term.

"The Government has procrastinated continuously when it comes to awarding teachers even a shilling but does so with alacrity to all its other employees with an argument of numbers," reads the NEC document seen by The Standard.

"The NEC clearly proposes to the delegates that if by January 2015 no tangible benefits are put forward, teachers resort to industrial action," adds the document.

NEC said the Government only begun serious negotiations with Knut for a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) after strike threats. Knut also wants a fourth scheme of service for its members. The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) currently runs the non-graduate, graduate and technical teachers schemes of service.

"NEC proposes removal of the Approved Teachers Service IV grade, expansion of job groups to S and T and formulation of a post graduate scheme of service," reads the document.

Knut says some teachers have never been promoted for the last 15 years and asks TSC to set a specified maximum number of years a teacher should remain in one job group.

The NEC report says these teachers fall in job groups P1, L and M.

"NEC proposes automatic promotion of all common cadre grades from P1 to job group L. Further, job group M should be a common cadre," reads the report.

Documents from TSC seen by The Standard indicate that only 7,577 tutors will be promoted after attaining higher qualifications, dismissing the figures fronted by Knut.

Proficiency Courses

TSC says teachers in the diploma category of job group G to J are only 4,288. Those in job groups H to J under the diploma category are 768.

Under the degree category, TSC says that teachers in job group G to K are 1,386. Another 239 tutors will be promoted from job group H to K after attaining degree qualifications. And those to be moved from job group J to K are 46. Some 22,659 teachers would be promoted under the common cadre promotions.

TSC says only 5,262 tutors who undertook teacher proficiency courses will be promoted, in addition to another 160 special cases. The unions listed over 33 demands, including a 300 per cent salary increment that they later scaled down by half.