A standoff between the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) over the implementation of a comprehensive bargaining agreement is looming with the latter threatening to mobilize its members to boycott classes if their grievances are not addressed.
KNUT national treasurer John Matiang’i is accusing the teachers’ employer of failing to come up with a document to appraise teachers’ performance as agreed in the current CBA.
The giant union last week threatened to call a nationwide teachers’ strike over what it terms as punitive policies.
Speaking in Borabu, Nyamira County KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion cited delocalization of principals and head teachers and Teachers Performance Appraisal Development (TPAD) among others as the policies causing friction.
Schools will close in about a weeks’ time paving way for the final and most crucial academic term of the year as candidates across the country prepare to sit for national examinations.
Third term is the shortest term and the term could even be shorter if KNUT makes good its threat of calling for a strike over the full implementation of a CBA they signed with TSC.
Matiang’i says the employer had virtually removed teachers from classrooms and sent them to fill Teachers Performance Appraisal and Development and National Education Management Information System forms at private cyber cafes but has now not appraised them accordingly.
He says teachers were dissatisfied with the non-implementation of some clauses in the CBA. He has called on TSC to address teachers’ grievances or face industrial action come September.
The development comes in the wake of students’ unrest that has seen the disruption of learning in a number of public secondary schools across the country.