Education Cabinet Secretary Mr Julius Ogamba has reassured teachers that the government would continue improving the welfare of teachers by addressing all the challenges they are facing.
Ogamba reiterated the State’s commitment to addressing teachers’ concerns over salaries and allowances.
The Cabinet Secretary said structures had been put in place for meaningful engagement with the teachers’ union officials.
Ogamba praised the members of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) for suspending a work boycott that was scheduled to kick off on August 26 and giving dialogue a chance.
He said the strike would have disrupted Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations which kick off this month.
“I praise teachers for letting examinations be done without interruption. We are looking for solutions for the issues they have raised,” he said.
He disclosed that this year 1,313,913 candidates will sit for KPSEA examination while 965,501 will write their KCSE examination. Last year 1,282,574 and 903,260 candidates sat for KPSEA and KCSE examinations respectively.
Speaking during celebration to mark World Teachers Day in Nakuru, the Cabinet Secretary acknowledged the crucial role that teachers played in the development of the country adding that since teachers were a fundamental condition to guarantee quality education, they and educators should be empowered, adequately recruited and remunerated, and more importantly, motivated.
He assured that to carry out successful education reforms, the government was investing heavily in the capacity of teachers and educators and teaching as a profession was being made attractive to the top high school candidates. he assured
Ogamba who was flanked by KNUT Secretary General Mr Collins Oyuu stated that the government had recognized that the success of the Education 2030 agenda requires sound policies and planning as well as sufficient and properly trained teachers.
The CS affirmed that the State was committed to quality education and to improve learning and the mechanism to measure progress.
He vowed to ensure that teachers and educators are empowered, adequately recruited, well trained, professionally qualified, motivated and supported.
The right to education, noted the Cabinet Secretary, makes it necessary to recruit and retain qualified and motivated teachers who should work in a safe environment, have access to appropriate tools and resources and enjoy adequate working conditions and remuneration.
“We are putting in place proper incentives which include appropriate remuneration and a clear career progression path. The government is working round the clock to ensure teachers are empowered through provision of decent working condition,” Ogamba stated.
“The teachers are being well resourced and their working environment being made safe and healthy,” he added.
Ogamba indicated that to achieve the Education 2030 agenda, every school in the country needed to be staffed with qualified teachers.
The Cabinet Secretary hailed KNUT leadership for putting in place alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to resolve their grievances in an amicable manner.
This, he said, had successfully yielded industrial peace in the education sub sector.
The World Teachers Day which is celebrated on October 5 annually, marks the anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCOs) Recommendation – concerning the status of teachers.
The UNESCO recommendation helped set benchmarks regarding the rights and responsibilities of teachers and standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, teaching and learning conditions.
According to UNESCO, the recommendation concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel was adopted in 1997 to complement the 1966 recommendation by covering teaching personnel in higher education.
The KNUT Secretary General said the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER), which looked at several areas in the sector and gave recommendations that would lay critical grounds for review of several laws affecting education, was a welcome move.
This, he said, was an indicator that the current regime values, respects and holds education and educators in high regard.
The CS further said that a well remunerated teacher is a well-motivated teacher. “Even if we trained, tooled and re-tooled, to make an impactful and modern teacher; we need to pay them well. In the CBA 2017-2021 teachers got a salary award that cushioned them against inflation. We thereafter signed a cashless CBA 2021-2023 and later managed to review it in respect to the clause 24 of the same to address the salary component,” stated the official.
Oyuu said the seven to 10 per cent salary award they secured from the employer was welcome though they had made a demand of 60 per cent.
While disclosing that the union had held deliberations with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) over the implementation of the second phase of the CBA, Oyuu praised the Commission for hiring 56,000 teachers with a further 20,000 set to be employed in January next year.
“A section of P1 teachers were caused to upgrade. We appeal to TSC to consider employing them among the 20,000 who will be hired as they now qualify to teach grades 7,8 and 9,” the official petitioned.
The unionist noted that the education sector the country needs is one that will grow learners holistically and that Kenya needs a modernized education that will make it compete favourably with other countries.
“This calls on the government to invest heavily on infrastructure development in the education sector, such as classrooms, laboratories, dormitories, libraries, electricity and internet connectivity. We want education that will impact and cause relevance for the professionals we produce in the growing world labour market. It is only then that we shall meet global standards,” he added. The Secretary General stated that the need to continuously review education policies that injure the education sector is imperative adding that policy development procedures should be in such a way that they serve the purpose of improving service delivery.
“Policies such as delocalization, deployment of teachers to administrative positions and identification and deployment of teachers to Junior Secondary School were hurriedly done and ended up punishing educators and their families instead of improving their productivity,” observed the official.
By Anne Mwale and Megg Njoki
