The 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examiners have now demanded payment of their dues in two weeks.
According to Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) national chairman Omboko Milemba, the more than 50,000 examiners are yet to receive their monies two months down the line.
He said the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) should pay the dues by the end of this month failure to which they will occupy the council’s office.
“The examiners are yet to receive their dues. This is despite the huge sacrifices the examiners made to serve their country in this critical assignment. The assignment came after a heavily-packed school year in which teachers hardly took a break from work,” said Milemba in a statement yesterday.
“We have given the examination council two weeks to settle the bills or face the teachers’ wrath. If the bills are not settled by the end of March, Kuppet will mobilise the examiners to occupy the KNEC head office,” he added.
Milemba said that poor conditions have remained unaddressed for so long that examination marking has become a challenge for some of the country’s best teachers.
He also stated that the examiners often are pushed to employ different methods of protest before their grievances are addressed.
“Fair labour practices demand that workers who render their services should be paid commensurate with the work done and on time. The teachers performed their part of the agreement successfully, yet all they get in return is neglect,” he noted.
Examiners who have children in school, he regretted, are struggling to pay fees during these hard economic times, yet the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) owes them money that would alleviate their suffering.
“The work itself is characterised by poor conditions including long hours, poor accommodation in students’ dormitories, poor diets and, above all, low pay,” he stated.
He said the KNEC dues are part of a ballooning ‘pending bills’ the government owes teachers for work done in ‘acting positions’ at all levels of responsibility, adding that teachers have provided the largest service to the government which remains unqualified pending bills.
“Given that teachers’ salaries are also low, having not been reviewed for three years, while others face acute stagnation in the same job group, the examiners have suffered enough and will not stomach any further delay of the payments from KNEC,” he said.
