KUPPET raises four issues teachers want addressed before schools reopen

Omboko Milemba, KUPPET's chairman, stated in an interview with Daybreak that the 2021-2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) must be enforced and a salary increase of 2.5 percent to 9% implemented.

The agreement addresses a variety of issues, including salaries and allowances, increases in housing allowances, promotions, and workload adjustments for teachers.

The KUPPET chair added that the 2021-2025 CBA would ensure that teachers are compensated after deductions such as the Housing Levy are made from their pay stubs.

According to Milemba, the teachers' unions held lengthy meetings with the government to discuss the agreement, but they expressed concern that the matter was not being handled with urgency.

He noted that teachers have since exhausted their options for having their employer, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), address their grievances.

"I carried all the teachers to a meeting with the president and told him that he's the first president who wants to get money from the teachers' pockets. (First president Jomo) Kenyatta gave teachers salaries, and (former president Daniel) Moi gave the celebrated Adongo deal while (third president Mwai) Kibaki gave the harmonised deal, (retired fourth president) Uhuru gave the Ksh.54 billion CBA, but for the president he wanted to get something out of teachers' pockets," he stated. 

"After long deliberations, we agreed that if the Housing Levy is to go on, the teachers would sign a CBA to make sure they are compensated for what they were going to lose. In fact, the CBA is a compensation. We went forward and teachers signed CBA with gov't through TSC. The CBA was small because ordinarily they wanted to sign a 30-70 per cent increase while the one we were given is an 11 per cent and harmonised house allowance."

He also raised the challenge of more than 130,000 teachers being stagnated in their job groups for over a decade, stifling career growth in the sector. 

Milemba advocated for regular promotions of teachers to senior positions such as deputies and school heads.

He also touched on 46,000 teachers employed on a contract basis to be converted to permanent and pensionable terms. He also advocated for the employment of 20,000 more teachers to fill the gap in Junior Secondary Schools (JSS).

The government sought to raise funds for the JSS teachers through the Finance Bill 2024, that was later repealed owing to a public uproar. President William Ruto, however, noted that he would look for alternatives to raise the funds. 

"We're demanding all the 46,000 JSS teachers be confirmed. We pleaded the ones who had been sacked because of their strikes be reinstated. We thank the president that when he rose from his place, he pardoned 751 who were supposed to be dismissed because of participating in strike," Milemba said. 

The KUPPET chair also raised concerns of TSC revoking the teachers' medical cover as from December 1, 2024, stating that the lean budget would not cover the third phase of their medical contract.

The teachers' medical contract operates on a three-year framework whereby the third phase was set to begin in December at a cost of Ksh.20.6 billion. 

Milemba stressed on the importance of the government to ensure the medical cover is not affected by the budget cuts occasioned by President Ruto's austerity measures.