Nairobi — Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Thursday moved closer to breaking the deadlock over the recruitment of teachers, paving the way for a possible 8,000 new educators to join the government workforce as early as next year.

This was after the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) agreed to give a "positive consideration" to his proposal that they withdraw a court case filed against the government blocking the recruitment of intern teachers.

Once it is withdrawn, the cash set aside for the opposed recruitment of 12,000 intern teachers would be handed to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to employ staff on permanent contracts, Mr Odinga said.

Immediate support

His call received immediate support from Knut, whose secretary general Lawrence Majali said they will "consider that as soon as possible".

The law provides that, if both parties to a suit agree to a new proposal, they can enter a written consent for the withdrawal of the suit, a scenario that would effectively open the way to the recruitment exercise if applied in this case.

And on Thursday, TSC secretary Gabriel Lengoiboni, who spoke after Mr Odinga opened this year's Knut National Delegates Conference at in Kasarani, Nairobi, said: "I'm ready to recruit the teachers as soon as January. If you sort out the matter amicably as proposed by the Prime Minister, I will immediately recruit new teachers using the (internship) funds held, even if the number is smaller."

Knut and the Ministry of Education have been locked in a court battle after the union successfully blocked the recruitment of 12,000 teachers as interns in August.

The stand-off meant that, for the first time in eight years, there was no teacher recruitment in the country, which has traditionally been used to replace those who leave through natural attrition.

The case comes up for direction in court on December 16.

However, speaking in Kasarani, Mr Odinga said the internship programme had no ill motive and was only meant to ease the teacher shortage in the country.

The Premier had further welcome news for the teaching fraternity when he ordered the Ministry of Public Service to put on hold its review of regions classified as hardship areas.

He directed the ministry, in consultation with Knut, to resurvey 25 divisions that were recently degazetted as hardship areas based on current economic and social indicators, and hand over the findings to the government before the end of this financial year.

Negotiated item

Mr Majali said the review of the hardship allowance was a negotiated item, and that the government erred in scrapping it without consultations with concerned parties.

Under a new scheme announced last month, some of the 94,000 teachers employed by the TSC lost up to Sh10,000 in monthly allowances.Mr Odinga spoke against cases where some retiring teachers were paid pensions long after they left service.

The PM also directed the Efficiency Monitoring Unit to ensure that teachers' pension delays were addressed within this financial year, and proposed that a retiring public servant should be paid pension as soon they are removed from the payroll.

Responding to Knut's complaints over delayed promotions of 6,000 teachers with A-level qualifications, Mr Odinga said the Education ministry was administering proficiency tests as a way of determining those to be upgraded. Mr Lengoiboni said the TSC was negotiating ways of speeding up the promotion of teachers.

He defended the commission against delays in the payment of pensions, saying: "We are always fast in releasing documents to the Treasury."