Mombasa JSS teachers vow not to go back to work as Kuppet joins strike

The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) Mombasa branch has joined the on-going Junior Secondary School teacher strike urging the government to address their grievances. 

Speaking in Mombasa during a peaceful demo on Monday, Mombasa Kuppet executive secretary Linet Kamadi said that there is no law that directs the Teachers Service Commission to hire qualified teachers as interns.

In Mombasa, out of 350 JSS teachers employed, 256 are working on internships, only 95 have been employed on permanent and pensionable terms.

Kamadi said that Mombasa requires 916 JSS teachers to teach learners in the 98 JSS schools in the region.

The JSS teachers who entered their third week of strike vowed not to go back to classes until the government addresses their grievances, which include putting them on permanent and pensionable terms.

"TSC having employed the JSS teachers on internship for the last year, they were supposed to have been confirmed as permanent and pensionable last year after serving for 11 months as indicated in the first letter they were given," Kamadi said.

"But to their dismay,  when their time came to be converted to PnP, they were told to renew the internship for the second time. This is an abuse of their services and abuse of the letter that they were given."

She said that the court asked TSC to negotiate with teachers to solve their grievances but instead, the teachers received show-cause letters from their employer.

"Three teachers cannot teach 9 lessons, the earlier we understand these as a country the better because children we took in Grade 7 are now in Grade 8, they are wasting their time in school," she said. 

The Kuppet executive secretary called upon the government to look for a way of closing the JSS classes until enough teachers are available to teach.

"To our President William Ruto, you have sung a song to us that there are no stupid people in Kenya, we are therefore asking you to find it in your heart to help the Kenyan child by hiring teachers," she said.

She also recommended removal of JSS from primary to secondary schools where the teachers and learners will get access to laboratories and workshops to enable them to learn sciences.

"We need to move with the requirements of the 21st century. We can only be reliable when we produce scientists and we cannot produce scientists who are not taught sciences. Transfer JSS to secondary schools and confirm them because they are graduates who were taught to teach only two subjects, not every other subject as it is today," she said.

Mombasa County JSS Interim chair Kevin said that they will not give into TSC's threats, what they want is for their grievances to be addressed.

"What we are asking for is the PnP, the syllabus we are teaching, we were not taught in university, and we are only supposed to teach two subjects. We also want to move from those primary schools because that environment is not fit for us," he said.

"We are not going back to school, we do not recognise those letters because they don't have any official communication and a stamp, it is just a letter sent via WhatsApp." 

He added that as teachers they will not be intimidated.

"We worked in the first year then in the second year, we were told the contract has been extended, something which was not part of the agreement. A time has come, when we need to be assured that our money has been included in the budget and confirmed so that we can go back to school."

"We will not get back to school without an official communication from the government and TSC because what we want is a return to work formula," he said.

Stanley Wafula, a JSS teacher said that they are expected to teach a whole syllabus with 36 lessons yet they are being paid Sh17, 000.

"In schools where we teach, the environment is not conducive, and the books we are given do not match the curriculum. There are so many problems, we want the government to address our issues because our children are suffering," he said.