Teachers warn against March poll

  SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTEMAILRATING

By TOM MATOKE tmatoke@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Sunday, March 25  2012 at  21:02

Teachers will not allow schools to be closed and used as polling stations if the General Election is held during term.

Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) vice-chairman Julius Korir warned that if the election was not held in December but on March 4, 2013, teachers would not allow schools to be closed.

Mr Korir told politicians to stop confusing the country and put the interests of children first.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony at Mosoriot Teachers College in Nandi County, Mr Korir said Kuppet would issue a directive to teachers not to close schools during term time.

He criticised Education minister Sam Ongeri for agreeing that schools break for half term for elections to take place in March.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) also supports the December election date.

Knut Nandi North secretary Josephat Serem said holding the election in March would affect the school calendar.

“We want the General Election in December so that school and farming activities are not disrupted,” he said.

Share This Story

Share 

He warned of food shortages if polls took place when farmers should be busy on the land.

Kuppet’s Nakuru branch has complained about transfers of school heads during within the term.

The union said about 10 deputy principals had been demoted in unclear circumstances.

Kuppet chairman Sammy Kambo said the transfers may affect this year’s KCSE exam performance.

“While we agree that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has a right to transfer teachers, this same should be done with a human face,” said Mr Kambo.

He claimed the transfers, which also involved dozens of teachers, were influenced by “forces outside TSC who were pushing for the promotions of their cronies”.

However, a senior TSC officer in the county justified the transfers and demotions.

“Those who were demoted were under-performers while the transfers were necessary,” said the official who declined to be named as he cannot speak on behalf of the Provincial Director of Education. 

Meanwhile, the Education ministry needs close to Sh10 billion to expand schools and hire more teachers.

Permanent secretary James ole Kiyiapi said this would speed up the transition from primary to secondary schools from 74 per cent to 100 per cent.

Speaking at St Peter’s Mumias Boys at the weekend, Prof Kiyiapi said the ministry would hire 40,000 of the targeted 80,000 new teachers if the funds were made available.

He said the current 270,000 teachers against a population of 9.4 million pupils in primary schools, 1.8 million in secondary schools and 3.4 million in kindergarten was far from ideal.

“We are still at the budgetary stage and do not know how much will be given to us,” he said.

Additional reporting by John Shilitsa and Francis Mureithi