Worry not parents: This is how teachers strike will be diluted

Image result for nancy macharia tscParents have condemned the planned strike and asked the TSC and KNUT officials to come up with a lasting solution to avoid disrupting learning.

TSC Chief Executive Nancy Macharia asked the commission’s head of quality assurance, Dr Mugwuku Nthamburi, to prepare details of the estimated 290,000 trained and registered teachers, but who are unemployed, who would be recruited to replace those who go on strike. The move is intended to disrupt the planned strike by teachers  and ensure learning is not disrupted.

In a bold move to cement the threat ,the Teachers Service Commission officials have skipped a meeting with the Kenya National Union of Teachers intended to avert the looming strike.

“You are required to urgently extract the data provided by the teachers in their registration details in the teacher online registration portal,” says Ms Macharia in her December 21 letter, a copy of which the news room has obtained.Image result for nancy macharia tsc

She directed Dr Nthamburi to “ensure the teachers can be contacted on short notice through the bulk SMS facility for assignment of duty”.

While the letter does not expressly state that the TSC will hire new teachers to replace those who will boycott work, it sends a warning to Knut — which has ruled out any conciliation talks — that schools will open on Thursday as scheduled and that mitigation measures are in place to guard against disruptions.

Knut — which has a membership of about 180,000 — yesterday wrote to its branch officials throughout the country asking them to ensure no teacher reports to work on Thursday.

Secretary-General Wilson Sossion’s letter to Knut’s executive secretaries read in part: “…bring to the attention of every member that the strike action commences exactly on the opening date of the new term. No teacher should report for the new school term until the strike is called off formally by the secretary-general.”

Knut has been campaigning for the promotion of all teachers who have attained higher education qualifications, a review of the new performance contracting system and the stoppage of mass transfers of headteachers and their deputies in a new policy introduced to delocalise the management of schools.

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