The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) deserves praise for agreeing last week to consider Prime Minister Raila Odinga's call that it withdraws a court case it had filed against the government, seeking to block the recruitment of 12,000 intern teachers.

The government also merits a pat on the back for giving the nod to the recruitment of 8,000 educators on permanent contracts once the union drops its case.

According to the prime minister, the money that had been set aside for the recruitment of intern teachers would now be handed over to the Teachers Service Commission to employ thousands of new educators.

Time and again it has been said that the best route to the peaceful resolution of any dispute is through dialogue.

The union and the Ministry of Education have been engaged in a court battle after the union blocked the recruitment of the intern teachers.

Another dispute between the two parties revolves around the harmonisation of hardship allowances, which had prompted the union to threaten industrial action at the height of last month's national examinations.

The new scheme announced by the government saw thousands of teachers employed by the Teachers Service Commission lose monthly allowances after the harmonisation that saw the scrapping of some hardship areas.

Mr Odinga heard their pleas when he ordered the Ministry of Public Service to halt the review of areas classified as hardship areas.

He said the ministry should together with Knut resurvey 25 divisions that were recently degazetted as hardship areas based on current economic and social indicators.

To avoid further conflicts in future it would help if the government consulted the interested parties before implementing certain measures.

As Mr Odinga told the teachers at their annual delegates meeting in Nairobi that the internship programme was not based on ill motive, but was merely meant to help the government ease the current teacher shortage in the country.

While the government should always consult interested parties before implementing decisions it would also help if the unions stopped viewing any government proposal as a call to take up arms.

Dialogue, as the prime minister, rightly showed does indeed resolve disputes.