• Kuppet says the training will help teachers boost security in schools and be able to detect and counter student protests.
• Without paramilitary training, no teacher should be held answerable when strikes happen in learning institutions.
Image: EMOJONG OSERE
The Education ministry has been urged to enlist teachers for paramilitary training if it wants them to be part of a team that provides security in schools.
Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers Busia branch executive secretary Mophats Okisai told the Star teachers have no capacity to prevent the current wave of unrest in schools since they have not been trained to detect and counter such incidents.
The unionist said no teacher should be held responsible for instability in schools unless there is evidence they were directly responsible for the unrest.
Okisai spoke two days after Education CS George Magoha declared that teachers and prefects who will be on duty during school strikes will be held responsible for what happens.
The CS said the government will not tolerate laxity by principals and teachers in preventing unrest at a time destruction of school property due to strikes is increasing. He said schools have lost property worth millions of shillings to unrest.
“Our proposal to Prof Magoha is that let us enhance a multi-agency approach in resolving matters related to insecurity in our learning institutions,” Okisai said Tuesday.
“And I would like to tell the CS that the only weapon of defence a teacher can have while on duty is a piece of chalk and a pen. As teachers, we have never gone through any paramilitary training for self-defence.”
Okisai said if the CS wants teachers to actively participate in matters security in schools, then instructors should undertake specialised training.
He said without the training, the ministry should engage police and other security personnel in securing learning institutions.
Okisai said other than blaming teachers, the ministry should liaise with the National Police Service for the deployment of officers in schools.
“During examination time we always engage the police officers to be in charge of exams,” the unionist said.
“We can as well engage the same personnel to be in charge of the students, teachers and the support staff during tuition but not to take any punitive actions against teachers when unrest has taken place in learning institutions.”
School dormitories, classes, laboratories and other structures have in recent weeks been destroyed by students on the rampage in public schools across the country.
When Magoha spoke, he said teachers have the capacity to prevent destruction of school property and that leaders in learning institutions who will be on duty when the incidents happen will be answerable.
He said drug abuse in schools is not new and some teachers are aware of who in their respective schools consumes narcotics. Drug abuse, he said, is among the factors fuelling unrest.
He said students who will be singled out as inciters when strikes occur will face the law.
When authorities arrest culprits who believe they have the power to burn buildings constructed using public money, such suspects should know they are liable for prosecution and can serve up to eight years in prison, the CS said.
But Okisai said teachers can only be held culpable if they have been trained to detect early signs of unrest and it has been proven that such teachers did not intervene to prevent a strike at a time it was being planned.
Arresting teachers and other school leaders due to school strikes, he said, would only amount to apportioning blame to where it does not deserve.
Busia Kuppet chairman Charles Mukwana called on the Teachers Service Commission to give honorary promotions to educators who have stagnated in one job group for over 20 years.
“We have teachers who have stagnated for over 20 years in one particular job group,” Mukhwana said.
“It is regrettable and very unfortunate that the same teachers have not been invited for promotional interviews. Our proposal on the same is that let those teachers who have stagnated in one particular job group be given honorary promotions.”
He accused the TSC of inviting teachers for promotional interviews over the weekend “well knowing that such teachers cannot travel and attend interviews within 24 hours”.