Knut urges members to elect leaders who back higher salaries

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) wants its members to elect leaders in the August 9 General Election who are rooting for better working conditions and higher salaries for teachers.

Teachers, secretary-general Collins Oyuu said, should back candidates who have a keen interest in improving the education sector.

But he said the union will not ask its members to support a particular political party or groupings and leave them to make independent choices.

“Matters affecting the education sector and particularly teachers who are the pillars of the sector require a lot of legislative frameworks and as such, we should elect members of Parliament who will help progress the agenda to the benefit of the current and future generations,” Mr Oyuu said.

Mr Oyuu said teachers will support MPs who are sensitive to the needs of the education sector, citing the widening student-student ratio as a result of the government’s 100 percent transition policy for primary school learners.

“We have had a cordial relationship with the majority of the MPs and we appreciate the support they have given us both as teachers and as a union. We shall back anyone out to assist teachers in the issues affecting them and the education sector,” Mr Oyuu told the Nation in Kericho.

The education sector faces a myriad of challenges with the implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) encountering headwinds over lack of proper public participation before it was rolled out.

Questions have been raised about the wisdom of establishing junior secondary.

“There is a need to tweak the coin and have the junior secondary section renamed senior primary so as to ensure a smooth transition of … learners to the next level,” Mr Oyuu said.

But the union, he said, will take a neutral position in the General Election and Knut members will be free to back political parties and candidates of their choice.

It is a departure from the 2017 polls, when the secretary-general at the time, Wilson Sossion, led the Knut leadership in signing a memorandum of understanding with the now defunct Nasa coalition to back former Prime Minister Raila Odinga for the presidency.

Mr Sossion was nominated by ODM to Parliament but he has since shifted his allegiance to the United Democratic Alliance (UDA), of which Deputy President William Ruto is expected to be the presidential flag-bearer.

The union’s top decision-making organs have passed a resolution to anchor in its constitution the rule that officials elected to Parliament or a county assembly resign from their positions.

It nipped in the bud the ambitions of some of the officials who had for the past few years dabbled in politics and were seeking elective positions.

Those who take up roles in the executive arms of the national or county governments will also lose their positions in the union, under the constitution ratified a few weeks ago.

Even though many MPs are former teachers or have that training background, there has been concern that they have not lived up to expectations in setting the legislative agenda for the education sector.

Some of the legislators who are trade unionists are former Knut secretary-general Mr Sossion and former Kuppet national chairman Omboko Milemba, who is the Emuhaya MP.

Bungoma Woman Representative Catherine Wambilianga is the gender rep at Kuppet’s national office, while Ronald Tonui, the Bomet Central MP, is its assistant treasurer. Samuel Moroto (Kapenguria) and Charles Kamuren (Baringo Central) are former Knut branch executive secretaries.

Several members of other unions are also contesting various elective positions.

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