Kewota calls for breastfeeding rooms in schools for teachers

Kenya Women Teachers Association (Kewota) General Secretary Benta Openda and National Treasurer Jacinta Ndegwa speaking to journalists at Maragi Primary School in Murang'a on July 23, 2019. They said they are in talks with women MPs whom they want to help come up with a law that will see the establishment of breastfeeding centers in schools. PHOTO | NDUNG'U GACHANE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Ms Opande said the proposed law will ensure increased productivity of women teachers across the country.
  • She leaving behind breast milk to house helps at home is not healthy for the babies.
  • Kewota chairperson Jecinta Ndegwa said the association will act as the link between retiring women teachers and TSC.

A women league of teachers wants the Ministry of education to establish breastfeeding centres in learning institutions, saying this will enable teachers improve their output in schools.

Through the Kenya Women Teachers Association (Kewota), the teachers have called for the an enactment of a law that, if passed by the National Assembly, will compel all the learning institutions to build private rooms where the house helps of the lactating mothers will be staying during the day as the teachers teach.

PRODUCTIVITY

According to the Kewota General Secretary Benta Opande, the proposed law will ensure increased productivity of women teachers across the country. She added that this will also improve performance in schools.

Speaking to the Nation on Tuesday when she visited Maragia Primary School in Murang’a County, Ms Opande said the association is currently holding talks with women MPs to come up with a draft law that will be tabled in Parliament.

“We want a law to be put in place to allow women teachers to be accompanied by their house helps to schools where they will be breastfeeding their babies from time to time so as to increase their performance in schools,” Ms Opande said.

NOT HEALTHY

She said leaving behind breast milk to house helps at home is not healthy for the babies who should be breastfed directly by their mothers.

“Such policies have been put in place in private institutions and have increased productivity and that’s what we want in our schools. Women have been discriminated against for a very long time and that’s why we came up with the association to defend and advocate for their welfare,” she added.

Ms Opande announced that they will be rolling out a baseline survey that will consolidate all the women in country and their academic qualifications in a database in order to assist the government access them for jobs in state agencies.

LINK TO TSC

Kewota National Treasurer Jacinta Ndegwa said they formed the association to act as the link between the retiring women teachers and their employer, saying they have been taken in circles for long in their quest to get their dues.

“There is a lot of bureaucracy and middlemen when women teachers try to get their dues from the Teachers Service Commission and to prevent this, we saw it fit to establish an association that will be minding their welfare and assisting them to link with the employer without them being conned by greedy people,” Ms Ndegwa said.