The national government should consider implementing the recent court ruling that ordered salary increment for teacher of between 50-60 per cent of the basic salary, parents from Nyamira have said.
Their statement comes days after President Uhuru Kenyatta addressed the nation concerning the current stalemate between teacher employers TSC and various unions’ representation teachers in which the head of state maintained the pay could lead to crumbling of the economy.
However, speaking on Monday during a burial ceremony of a teacher at Omoyo in Nyamira said the government should have reconsidered its earlier decision to close all schools and reiterated their support to teachers.
“We are not happy that our children continue to stay away from schools all this time. The government has no alternative other than to give teachers what is rightfully theirs. Closing schools will never be a solution and time has come for the nation to resolve teachers’ grievances once and for all,” said Omoyo secondary PTA chair Alex Okundi.
They called upon the government to cut the current budget of NYS and award teacher’s salary as an expeditious step to ensure children get back to class.
“No one can convince us that the government cannot raise Sh17 billion. It will be important for the NYS budget to be cut from Sh26 billion to 10bn because initially the docket was being run by only Sh6 billion. This will be the best thing parliament has to do instead of mere politics,” he added.
The parents urged politicians to desist from politicizing the matter and urged them to treat it as an emergency.
“This is an emergency and politics should not be brought in. those in parliament should be solution givers by coming up with means of raising the money for the sake of respecting court order,” added secretary Adams Abuga.