JSS teachers avoid teaching in classes, causing paralysis in education.
As the second week of the intern teacher boycott approaches, instruction in thousands of public schools for students in grades seven and eight has come to a standstill.
Due to a lack of teachers, junior secondary school (JSS) students have been sitting in their classrooms doing nothing. The situation has been made worse by a staffing deficit that JSS has experienced since its launch last year.
This week’s Monday saw the start of the second week of the standoff between the interns and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), all the while private school instruction continued unabated.
Teachers around the nation have taken to the streets in protest, demanding permanent and pensionable employment, and pointing to the Employment and Labour Relations Court’s decision from last month that supports their position.
Hiring educators
Under the contentious initiative, the government began hiring teachers on a one-year contract in 2019. There are 46,000 of these teachers, most of them are assigned to JSS, which teaches seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. January is when Grade Nine will be implemented.
At JSS, interns are the core. Intervention is necessary due to the grave scenario. The issue is now one of education rather than labor, according to Secretary-General Akello Misori of the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet).
In an attempt to break the deadlock, the union last week filed petitions with the TSC, the National Treasury, and the National Assembly Committee on Labor. Mr. Misori asserted that the union has not heard back regarding the issue.
When classes resumed last week at AIC Visa Oshwal Primary School in Kabarnet, Baringo County, the six contract teachers had not returned. The school has been compelled to engage four trainers who are undergoing teaching practice in order to instruct the 386 JSS students, according to headteacher Mr. William Bowen.
Mr. Emmanuel Karuke, the headteacher of Kilifi Primary School in Kilifi County, reported that instructors employed by the board of management are assisting trainees in teaching practice in addition to the students. There are 168 seventh-graders and 186 eighth-graders at the school.
The two contract teachers at Seguton Primary School in Kabarnet, which is nearby, have not yet returned to work. There are eighty JSS students enrolled in the institution, and there is only one permanent, pensionable teacher.
“Primary school teachers have been forced to help the one teacher in order to avoid the students idling the entire day,” stated Mr. Jonathan Chebet, the headteacher.
Region of the North Rift
The majority of non-local teachers in the North Rift region have not yet returned from their holidays.
A Turkana County teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Nation, “We are facing intimidation from senior TSC officers who have influenced police officers not to acknowledge our notification to stage peaceful processions.”
Some JSS teachers staged protests in Kitale, Trans Nzoia County, on Tuesday, pledging not to go back to work unless their demands were satisfied.
Mr. David Luganda, the headteacher of Kitale School, stated that all instructors are on duty and that instruction has not been disrupted.
“Since we reopened, all nine of the instructors in my JSS department have been working. “Out of them, four are interns,” Mr. Luganda stated.
See also: The reasons junior secondary issues are far from resolved
Wellington Waliaula, chair of the Trans Nzoia Parents Association, voiced his worries, saying, “The government must act on this matter because children are not learning.”
The National Assembly Education Committee chair Julius Melly delivered a statement during yesterday’s demonstrations that encouraged JSS teachers to return to work on the understanding that 26,000 of them will be hired on a permanent and pensionable basis in January. However, the teachers rejected the statement.
Speaking on behalf of the organization, Mr. Walter Wanjala stated, “We will only end our strike once we receive a formal communication from the TSC about changing the employment terms for 46,000 teachers, not from politicians.” On Monday, there were protests in Kapenguria town as well.
There is only one JSS teacher in Kilifi County’s Basi Primary School, and she works there permanently. She wasn’t there on Monday. The Nation was informed by a teacher in Rabai that the few permanent instructors assigned to JSS are overburdened.
Long-term agreements
“Some schools have one teacher on permanent terms and it becomes difficult to control all the learners,” the instructor stated.
Headteachers were irate, according to Zacharia Opollo, deputy executive secretary of the Kuppet Kilifi chapter, who spoke with The Nation.
In actuality, learning has never existed and isn’t happening this term. We are throwing away an entire generation. Finding college students to teach in their schools is proving to be difficult for headteachers, he said.
The TSC has been given Sh8.3 billion in the 2024–2025 budget projections to hire 26,000 contract teachers on a permanent basis starting in January 2025. By the end of the year, the majority of these teachers will have worked for two years while stationed in JSS.
Of the entire number, 22,000 will work in secondary schools, and 4,000 will teach in primary schools. 20,000 additional people, who would not have fulfilled the TSC requirement of serving for two years, will be excluded from the revised plan.
TSC has been given Sh4.68 billion to hire twenty thousand extra contract teachers. This will raise the total number of teachers hired by the Kenya Kwanza government to 76,000.
The government’s platform pledged to hire 58,000 more teachers at an annual cost of Sh25 billion in order to address the 116,000 teacher shortage. All of the teachers would be employed on a permanent basis with pensions if such monies were to be set aside for that purpose.
JSS teachers avoid teaching in classes, causing paralysis in education.
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