EI affiliate the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has called on its members to brace for a nationwide strike should the Government fail to implement the remaining phase of their salary increase scheme.
Union chairman Joseph Chirchir warned that KNUT’s executive council was monitoring the situation and could call for the strike any time this year. He said: "The government promised to implement the remaining phase should the economy improve. We have now registered a 4.3 percent growth in GDP and demand that they improve teachers’ salaries." Chirchir further decried the shortage of teachers in the country, which he blamed on Government laxity to employ more teachers. Knut Secretary General Francis Ng’ang’a reiterated the unions demand for 60,000 more teachers in a bid to ease the burden shouldered by the existing work force. He said the quality of education would be compromised more teachers are not hired. "Currently, we have over two million school-going children who have no teachers and just idle in school," Chirchir said.