PM MEETS WITH TEACHERS

Raila Odinga has asked the Kenya National Union of Teachers to withdraw a court case on hiring of intern teachers.

He urged the union to remain patient as the government works on releasing funds to address the teacher shortage.

“I want to assure the teaching fraternity that the policy on recruitment of teachers as interns was done in good faith to address the glaring shortage our schools were grappling with. But I agree that there are genuine concerns worth paying attention to,” said the PM.

Mr Odinga was speaking Thursday at the Moi International Sports Complex, Kasarani during the the KNUT 52nd annual delegates' conference.

On the payment of hardship allowance to teachers, Mr Odinga directed the Planning Ministry to resurvey the 25 divisions recently degazetted as hardship areas. He said the exercise should be based on economic and social indicators in consultation with KNUT and findings be made to the government before end of this financial year.

Noting that implementation of the new directive is set to begin next July, the PM pointed out that there was enough time to resurvey the areas and take remedial measures before implementation begins.

Mr Odinga also addressed the issue of teachers' pensions saying that, contrary to the law, retired teachers are removed from the payroll before they are paid their pensions.

Saying the anomaly could have arisen because of inefficiency in the pensions department, the PM emphasised that there must be seamless transfer to the pension roll such that if pay stops in January, the pension must follow the next month.

“Consequently, I have directed the Efficiency Monitoring Unit in my office to ensure that this disconnect is streamlined and the efficient processing of teachers pension start within this financial year.”

On promotion of P1 A-level teachers, the PM said the Ministry of Education was scaling it up through proficiency tests as a way of determining who gets promoted.

“So far more than 6,000 P1 A –level teachers have been promoted since 2003 and interviews have been going on for more promotions,” he said.

On industrial action, the PM noted that the Government and KNUT had established a new approach to addressing issues through dialogue adding this approach had been instrumental in averting past disruptive strikes.

Mr Odinga also told the teachers that they had a critical role to play in the conservation of the environment.

He particularly urged them to take the lead in conserving the country’s five water towers of Mt. Kenya, Aberdares, Mt. Elgon, Cherengany and the Mau saying teachers must play their leadership role well and lead by example.

“Every teacher and every student should plant 10 trees per year for the country to realise a target of 7.6 billion trees in ten years,” he added.

The PM observed that due to climate change, the country was experiencing extremities of a weather patterns such as the devastating drought early in the year and destructive floods making the country vulnerable.

“We can only control these extremities of weather in our country if we conserve our environment as envisioned in the Vision 2030.”

KNUT National chairman Mr George Wesonga told off the PM’s detractors saying the PM was genuinely working to preserve the environment on behalf of the country’s future generations