Kuppet’s bare minimum claim to TSC as the strike starts to take hold.
The Kuppet strike by secondary school teachers began its second week on Monday, and the teachers are now being very tough with their boss.
It’s no longer what the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Teachers wants to do. It is now being asked that teachers with advanced degrees who have been stuck in the same job groups be moved up.
Kuppet wants the Teachers Service Commission to fire teachers who have been working in the same job groups for years even though they went to class and got better grades.
Right now, the union is fighting TSC because they don’t think the government is doing enough to recognize and reward the hard work of Kenyan teachers.
A lot of college teachers with master’s degrees don’t get promoted automatically, so they stay in the same job groups for decades.
The same goes for people with diplomas who have gone on to get degrees while they were in service.
Under its standard cadre progression, TSC only promotes teachers automatically after they have worked for the school for a certain number of years and met certain academic requirements.
Teachers in Job Groups J (C1), K (C2), and L (C3) can move between job groups without having to go through a competitive selection process as long as they meet certain requirements.
As a Secondary School Teacher Two, people with a degree start their careers in Job Group K (C2), while people with a diploma start their careers in Job Group J (C1).
People who want to move up to Job Groups M (C4) or higher must go through a competitive selection process. This includes school administrators like senior teachers and assistant headteachers.
Vacancies are posted from time to time, depending on how much money is available. Interested parties can apply through the TSC’s online portal, and the organization’s offices will choose the best candidates.
The Kuppet National Steering Committee decided on Sunday that the strike will go on until TSC meets the union’s demands, which include at least promoting teachers with more education.
The NSC, which is Kuppet’s top decision-making body, said that the union’s demands had changed from the TSC’s pay increase to promotions.
“We’re not fighting for the extra Sh10,050.” Kuppet secretary general Akelo Misori said, “Teachers have loans to pay back and may have spent money on further education, but their efforts are being wasted because there hasn’t been a review of career advancement.”
The employer has refused to recognize the hard work and commitment of teachers who have gone above and beyond to help students learn. They have also refused to promote these teachers, which is an insult to their intelligence and professionalism.
Kuppet says that even though their members have gone to school longer and earned more skills, they are still not getting promoted even though the TSC rules say that they should.
“We are seeing a plot to make teachers in this country useless and turn them into temporary workers.” This is not acceptable. “Educators work for a living,” Misori said.
TSC has said that it has promoted several teachers and has plans to promote more through the Career Progression Guidelines and common staff establishments.
“The TSC has promoted 51,232 teachers through competitive promotions and another 20,000 every year through the common cadre,” said Nancy Macharia, the head of the TSC, last week.
But Kuppet says that thousands of teachers have stayed in their jobs because TSC supposedly won’t promote them.
The TSC says that 78,768 teachers will be promoted soon, which means that at least 130,000 teachers in both secondary and primary schools will be promoted soon.
The union has now made the job raises the most important thing it wants to talk about with TSC before ending the strike.
The demand is seen as one of the most important problems that directly affect Kuppet members, and the union wants it to be solved before the strike ends.
Kuppet wanted TSC to fix a lot of problems, like putting JSS teachers on permanent contracts, raising wages, and making it easier for people to get medical benefits. The new demand seems to be a back down from those demands.
But it’s been a week since the teachers went on strike, and the union still hasn’t had a formal conversation with the employer about how to solve the problems. TSC is still saying that Kuppet must first end the strike.
Almost all public secondary schools in the country can’t teach or learn because of the strike, which could make it harder to get ready for this year’s Kenya Certificate for Secondary Education tests.
As of last week, the Kenya National Union of Teachers ended its strike. This meant that primary schools across the country could again run normally.
This happened after TSC decided to start Phase Two of the 2021–25 CBA, which had been put off, after the government gave them Sh15 billion.
The money would cover the teachers’ medical insurance and the raise in pay that starts on July 1.
Teachers also wanted their employers to send all loan and NSSF payments to the right government agencies.
They say that the money has been taken out but not sent to third parties, like banks, since June 2024.
Kuppet’s bare minimum claim to TSC as the strike starts to take hold.
