The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) together with Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) have called on President Ruto’s government to scrap off the teacher delocalization policy without a second.
According to the union officials the programme is harmful and affecting teachers and their families and that the government should abolish it.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) introduced the policy five years ago saying it will enhance national cohesion.
However the programme has received backlash from teachers and their unions who are now calling for its abolishment.
West Pokot Knut secretary Martin Sembelo said the delocalisation policy has impacted negatively on the performance of learners in every county and has jeopardized learning in schools.
“Policies introduced by TSC are harmful. Teachers are doing a lot of work instead of teaching in class. Delocalisation is the worst thing we have ever experienced. It has created disharmony in families, some couples separated and died mysteriously. A man cannot teach in Eldoret while his wife is in Mombasa. Issues of infidelity will crop up. We want an education system where teachers are comfortable and produce good results. Let teachers teach in their home counties,” he said.
Knut, Kuppet and Kusnet yesterday asked also the government to include them in the planned Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) taskforce announced by President William Ruto.
“Kuppet welcomes President Ruto’s decision to create a taskforce to review, assess or guide the implementation of CBC. Towards that end, the union has written to the Ministry of Education demanding the inclusion of teachers’ unions in the body,” said Kuppet secretary general Mr Akelo Misori.
Key among the issues that teachers want to be addressed by the committee are teacher preparedness, the double-intake in secondary schools in 2023, and parental engagement in the curriculum.
In a recent interview Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said that the Kenya Kwanza government will look into teachers salaries and delocalization policy deeply.
Both Gachagua and President elect, Dr William Ruto, will be sworn in on Tuesday 13th September to officially take the office mandate.
The DP also said that their government will have a forum with teachers to air their issues and how they would want them addressed.
He promised an end to the teachers delocalization policy which he says it is destroying families.
“We are where we are because our teachers played an important role in our earlier life. Delocalization…. is a problem it has destabilized teachers families,” said the DP.
The President William Ruto, has in the previous talked about the policy which is affecting many teachers and how his government will deal with it.
Ruto said he will stop teachers being forced to work outside their home counties. Currently the TSC has a plan to post and transfer teachers to work in counties away from their homes.
He said delocalization of teachers will be done at will with allocation of hardship allowance to teachers who will take part in it.
According to TSC policy, teachers working in North Eastern region are required to have completed at least three years before they are transferred back to their home counties.
Teachers in other regions are required to work for at least five years before they are considered for transfer to their homes.
“The teacher must have served in a station for a period of not less than three years and five years for North Eastern and other areas respectively since first appointment; unless otherwise authorized by the Commission’s Secretary,” read the new guidelines in part.
However Dr Ruto said only those teachers who are willing will be delocalized. Again those who will be delocalized will be paid for it.
Ruto said he will abolish the delocalisation policy by the TSC and replace it with a programme that will acknowledge that teachers are a national resource.
He said teachers will be at liberty to choose the counties and schools they want to work for. He promised to convert the current Teachers Management Institute to the Kenya School of Education to better manage the learning institutions.
“The domesticated teacher recruitment and deployment at entry-level will be per the UNESCO teacher deployment practice which treats education as culture process conducted within a people’s culture context at the local level,” he said.
The Commission has continued to delocalize teachers with the latest being the newly recruited teachers who started to be posted this month.