The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General Wilson Sossion. [Photo/File]
The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) on Tuesday threatened strike action in January in order to compel the Teachers Service Commission to suspend the last week’s mass transfer of 557 principals and head teachers.
In a statement to newsrooms, KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion accused the Commission of making unilateral decisions without consultations with other key players in the education sector.
“We totally oppose the unilateral decision to transfer 557 principals. We consider the idea ill-conceived and we suspect the plotters do not mean well as this action could, at the end, negatively affect the sector in many ways including demoralising hardworking and successful teachers who view this action as punishment for poor performance in the affected schools.”
“We would like to warn that if all these concerns are not addressed then teachers will withdraw labor and schools will not open in the new year,” he said.
KNUT is also demanding for the immediate removal of the recently introduced mandatory teachers’ appraisals whose effect, he says, would be to affect teaching negatively.
“…It is laborious, tedious, time-consuming and is adding no value to teaching,” read the statement.
If the giant teacher union effects the strike, then operations in public schools which are expected to open for the new academic year next week on Tuesday are likely to be paralysed.
TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia defended the transfers, which take effect from January 2018, as a new delocalization programme meant to promote national integration.