Schools to reopen amid teachers’ strike threat
A pupil fits a school uniform in readiness for reopening on May 3, 2016. Teachers have threatened to go on strike over salary increment. PHOTO | PAUL WAWERU | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Also pending is the curriculum review, review of schools fees, and development of a policy of procurement of textbooks that must be concluded by June.
- The government releases fees capitation to schools in three phases; 50 per cent for first term, 30 per cent for second term and 20 per cent for third term.
Students will begin second term on Tuesday with a warning cloud hanging over their heads that public school teachers will go on strike by July 1, to demand the conclusion and signing of a Collective Bargaining Agreement with their employer.
Also pending is the curriculum review, review of schools fees, and development of a policy of procurement of textbooks that must be concluded by June.
Last term, parents complained after several public secondary schools devised ways to charge additional funds as part of schools fees despite guidelines released last year by the government.
On Saturday, the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association Chairman John Awiti asked the government to release school capitation fee (amount paid per student) on time.
“We are starting our term on Tuesday and hope that all will go on well and the government will undertake its role of releasing school capitation,” he said.
Special Schools Heads Association of Kenya Chairman Arthur Injenga voiced similar sentiments, saying that any delays would affect learning.
The government releases fees capitation to schools in three phases; 50 per cent for first term, 30 per cent for second term and 20 per cent for third term.
Budget estimates presented to the National Assembly on Thursday by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich show that the government has reduced capitation to primary and secondary schools.
Mr Rotich has allocated Sh32 billion for free primary day secondary schools compared to Sh32.7 billion in the current financial year.
Free Primary Education will get Sh14 billion, down from Sh14.1 billion last year.
The government has only allocated Sh1.5 billion as subsidy to the Kenya National Examinations Council for examination fee waiver out of Sh3.4 billion that it had promised.
On the teachers’ strike, Kenya National Union of Teachers and Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers say time is running out for the signing of a CBA as directed by President Uhuru Kenyatta last year.
“We demand that the TSC concludes and ensures the signing of the CBA with Knut and other stakeholders,” Knut Secretary- General Wilson Sossion said.
He urged the Salaries and Remuneration Commission to make public its findings on teachers’ job evaluation.
Kenya Union Of Post Primary Teachers (Kuppet) Chairman Omboko Milemba also wants TSC to release union dues that were withheld over a membership validation row.
On distribution of textbooks to schools, Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has complained that the books ratio of 1:1 has not been achieved in most schools.
