Geoffrey Rono
15 November 2009
Nairobi — The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) said over the weekend it was against the proposal in the draft constitution to have public school teachers be employed mainly by the devolved authorities.
The Union's national chairman Mr George Wesonga said the draft prepared by the the Committee of Experts on the Constitution was "ill conceived and aimed at usurping powers of the Teachers Service Commission."
However, Mr Wesonga stated that the union was not opposed to the regional and county governments being given the powers to be manage other services but not to employ and appoint staff especially in the teaching force.
Speaking at Koibeyon Secondary school in Bomet district where he helped to raise over Sh900,000 towards construction of two classrooms, he insisted that the constitution should safeguard teaching as a national service just like was the case with the police and the armed forces.
The chairman pointed out that for the smooth running of the education sector in the country, TSC should remain as the main employer of teachers.
"If people are not ready to listen to this, we will vote against anything that is against us, " he stated.
The chairman added, "We are even prepared to vote out anybody against us in the next general elections".
He said that if the government was not careful and have a constitution that went against the wishes of the citizenry, it was bound to fail.
"How do the government expect regions that have no resources to raise enough money to pay teachers and other public servants?" he regretted.
Mr Wesonga urged the government to tread carefully in the delivery of a document to Kenyans that would promote tribalism by confining teachers and other workers to their home areas.
During the function attended by more than 300 delegates, the second vice national chairman Mr Wilson Sossion and who is the patron of Koibeyon was endorsed unopposed ahead of the Union's annual delegates conference slated for Moi International Sports Centre - Kasarani in Nairobi on December 3.
The Union's assistant secretary general Xavier Nyamu and several other top union officials accompanied the chairman.
Mr Wesonga said the union will fight for the reinstatement of the hardship areas that the government scrapped recently and censured Public Service minister Dalmas Otieno for interfering with the education sector.
The minister, he said, had no powers to gazette the hardship areas since they were in existence through an Act of Parliament, laws that should also be applied if they were to be scrapped.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
