Less than an hour after the government announced an indefinite closure of primary schools, Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) ended its strike on July 17, 2013.
For more than three weeks, about 240,000 primary and secondary school teachers were on strike. The teachers pleaded for higher travel, housing, and medical allowances as well as a 500% pay increase, which the government was supposed to guarantee under a deal passed in 1997.
Though initially reluctant to settle for a deal, KNUT accepted the government’s offer of 16.8 billion shillings (USD 193 million), which is far off from USD 540 million asked by the union.
The First Deputy President of Kenya, William Ruto, made clear that the government cannot offer any more money. Ruto said, “The deal you have been given by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) on commuter allowance cannot be added or reduced. We are operating within a very tight budget”. He added, “We want to negotiate in a structured manner so that the agreement is honored irrespective of who is in office”.
The commuter allowance will be paid over two installments, the first tranche by the end of this month and the last starting July 2014. The deal also promises a flat rate of 10,000 shillings (USD 115) for teachers engaged in special education. Settlements for medical and housing allowances will be negotiated with the State Medical Insurance Fund and a state agency responsible for public workers’ pay.
KNUT represented by its Secretary General Mudzo Nzili, accused Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) of being inconsiderate. Nzili commented, “We wanted the commuter allowances to be paid at one go but we were unable to get the government to budge because KUPPET had already accepted a three-phase deal”. KUPPET had already settled on an agreement which covered 16.2 billion shillings as commuter allowance. Hence, public secondary schools were eliminated from the closure.
As part of the deal, the union was absolved from the contempt of court charges filed by the Teachers Service Commission. Before the acquittal, the union’s Chairman Wilson Sossion and the Secretary General Nzili were facing a six-month sentence and/or a fine of 20 million shillings.
The Kenya Primary School Heads Association (KEPSHA) urged the government and the unions to focus on the nation’s students. Its Chairman Joseph Karuga stated, “The children who are facing exams this year, lost some time last year during another strike, they lost another 10 days during elections and now they have missed out on four weeks. That is a problem we cannot wish away”. He added, “These children are the people whose future we are talking about and if we continue interfering with it, the cost will be enormous”.
The government decided to hire 10,000 additional teachers demanded by the union to regulate the disorders in schools. Regardless of the government-ordered closure, the teachers will return to schools on the 18th, as directed by Mudzo Nzili.
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Written by Carolina Shin