A high school teacher accused of flirting with a teenage schoolgirl on social media has been fired and banned from the profession by the Teachers Service Commission.
The TSC's decision to dismiss to sack was backed by the Employment and Labour Relations Court in Nairobi, which threw out a case filed by the teacher seeking to be reinstated on the teachers' register.
It was alleged that the teacher texted the learner using a pseudo account on Instagram, allegations that he denied. He claimed that he was framed.
"The reasons for termination were valid and fair as per the employment laws and [the teacher] was accorded a chance to exculpate but by his own unjustified failure to attend the disciplinary hearings, the dismissal is found to have been fair in substance and procedure," said Justice Byram Ongaya while rejecting the teacher’s petition.
The teacher is accused of sending "inappropriate" intimate messages to a 17-year-old Form Four student through the social media platform on unspecified dates during the April 2023 school holiday.
He allegedly sent her a message saying “I love you so much, remember that always”. The court heard that he later sexually abused the learner at an office inside the school's computer laboratory by kissing on her lips and caressing her.
The learner informed her guardian, who subsequently reported the matter to the school principal. This was escalated to the school's Board of Management (BOM), leading to a disciplinary case against the teacher over immoral behaviour and a breach of the TSC Act.
According to the principal and the TSC, the board undertook an in-depth evaluation of the circumstances of the case, the oral and documentary evidence, including the relevant statements.
The board determined that there were indeed grounds pointing to a violation of the Code of Conduct for Teachers, hence the decision to interdict him.
In his case against the dismissal and deregistration, the teacher claimed that he was framed and that the learner had recanted and disowned her statement "since the same was obtained through coercion and undue influence".
The court heard that the board disregarded a letter from the learner and her father to the school principal withdrawing the complaint.
The teacher said the parent dropped the complaint after "establishing from the daughter and through their independent investigations that the allegations were false and unfounded".
He argued that the interdiction was done despite the accusations being unsubstantiated and based on a pseudo social media account, which was never investigated to ascertain the truth and that neither did the BOM consider looking at the CCTV available in the school.
"The petitioner went through emotional, psychological and physical trauma for losing his job and the stress of taking care of his young family and his health deteriorated, leading to him being in and out of hospital. While receiving medical care, the petitioner received a letter from TSC dated July 21, 2023 inviting him for a disciplinary hearing on August 23, 2023 in their Nairobi offices," his lawyers said.
In response, the TSC told the court that the allegations by the petitioner that he could not attend the hearings on account of illness were probed by the commission and its field staff and found to be false.
"Reinstatement cannot and should not be issued in the circumstances of this case as the relationship of trust hitherto existing between the TSC and the teacher entirely and irreparably collapsed following the illegal act on the part of the teacher to sexually abuse a learner who was under his care," TSC told court.
Ruling in favour of TSC, Justice Ongaya found that the teacher failed to give a valid reason why he failed to attend the disciplinary hearing.
"The TSC had written communication that the teacher had not been attended to in hospital as he had alleged. The court finds that in the absence of any other material, the TSC was entitled to find the teacher culpable," said the judge.
