TEACHERS may go on strike on Tuesday next week. The strike comes after the government refused to pay teachers their July salary.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers' Advisory Council and the National Executive Council will meet on Monday to decide whether to go on strike immediately or file a case against the Teachers Service at the Industrial Court.

"There is no need for teachers to be back in school when they have not been paid," Knut chairman, Wilson Sossion said,

Secretary general Mudzo Nzili issued a seven day strike notice the commissions CEO Gabriel Lengoiboni. "We have the option of going to court but we have decided to use the notice," Sossion said.

He said the education sector has been thrown into "anarchy" by the government which is supposed to protect it.

Nzili said he is surprised the government is not honouring the July 18 return-to-work formula which stated that there will be no "victimisation" of teachers who participated in the 22-day strike.

"To us there is no greater victimisation, than the withholding of a worker's salary on account of the number of days they took part in a strike," he said.

"TSC's decision to chop teachers salaries leads us to also break our part of the return-to-work agreement and go on another strike."

Lengoiboni wrote to Knut on July 29 that teachers' salaries will be deducted for the 21 days in July that they were on strike.

"The commission has breached its own code of regulation because withholding salaries is a reason for disciplinary action against it. No good industrial relations can be sustained by such unscrupulous trade practices," Nzili said.

Sossion and Nzili said no teacher has been interdicted for absenteeism and they are wondering what basis was used to cut their salaries.

The chairman said the government is a "hardliner".

"There has been no government that has ever gone against a return-to-work formula, not even the colonial government in the early 1960s," Sossion said.

Teachers were awarded a harmonised commuter allowance of Sh16.2 billion in two phases, although Knut says they got Sh11 billion which will amount to Sh16 billion by 2014.

Knut claims the government may be broke and wants to recover Sh13 billion in the salaries cut and use it to pay teachers the first face of the commuter allowance (Sh5.7 billion) and also hire 10, 000 teachers using Sh3.6 billion.

Lecturers and non teaching staff in public universities have also demanded payment of a second phase of Sh3.9 billion as agreed in a salary and house allowance deal of Sh7.8 billion struck in September 2012.

The Ministry of Education has allocated only Sh2.1 billion for the second and final phase.

The unions -Uasu and Kusu- have threatened to go on strike on August 5 if their pay slips do not reflect the Sh3.9 billion.