JSS Teachers Threaten to Continue With Strike Until Their Demands are Met

By Emmanuel Oyasi,

Junior secondary school(JSS) teachers in West Pokot County have condemned the teachers service commission TSC for what they termed as ignoring their demands.

Speaking on Monday 20th while staging demonstrations in Makutano town to express their dissatisfaction on how their grievances are being handled, the JSS teachers led by their union’s secretary Geoffrey Doione said they will not go back to class until their demands are met.

They expressed their fears that the competency-based curriculum CBC will be greatly affected if the government through the teacher’s employer will not address their grievances.

“We won’t attend to pupils until our demands are met. We want to tell the government that the JSS teachers are graduates and should be treated like ones. We are not interns,” said Mr. Doione.

Mr. Doione asked TSC to adhere to the court ruling that granted them the right to be employed on permanent and pensionable terms.

“The court ruled in our favor but we don’t understand as to why TSC is not obeying the court’s ruling,” he said.

His statements were echoed by the KUPPET secretary West Pokot county Alfred Kamuto who said the JSS teachers have been neglected by the government and yet they are being overworked.

He said the union is in solidarity with the striking teachers.

“We are in support of the striking JSS teachers to make sure that TSC heeds to their demands. JSS teachers are overworked and yet poorly paid,” said Mr. Kamuto.

Worth noting, the learning activities in junior secondary schools are on stand still since the reopening of schools for the second term due to the ongoing JSS teachers strike.

The teachers accused TSC of lacking goodwill to address the matter once and for all.