By Charles Ojiambo
Education Committee in the National Assembly is planning to scrutinize teachers health insurance scheme provider AON-Minet.
Lugari Member of Parliament Hon. Nabii Nabwera who is one of the committee members has raised issues with the way the scheme is serving teachers, noting that most of them are suffering under the scheme.
“Many teachers have reached and shared with me their experiences with the scheme. That thing is a fraud.”
Addressing Western primary schools headteachers at a Busia hotel during the closure of their KEPSHA three day conference, Nabwera who is known for fighting for teachers’ welfare, wondered why the scheme was not able to serve teachers adequately despite it receiving up to Ksh. 50 billion annually.
“The government sends money there , a lot of money but when a teacher is sick, they can’t get served well,” he lamented.
The MP also took issue with the millions of shillings set aside for maternity in the scheme and yet majority of them are past fifty years of age.
“Even if we do a survey here now, how many teachers are still giving birth? Very few. But where does money set aside for maternity in the scheme go? Who eats that money?,” posed the legislature.
Away from the health insurance cover for teacher, he urged the government to employ at least five teachers in every Junior Secondary School in the country.
“The new system is good. Am one of the seventeen MPs who persuaded the president to let Junior Secondary Schools be domiciled in primary schools because I knew you have the capacity to look after the young learners. Although there are many challenges still facing the new system, I would urge the government to deal first with the issue of shortage of teachers. Let it employ at least four or five teachers per school.”
Nabwera went ahead to decry unfair employment and distribution of teachers in the country, “A county like Murang’a has an excess of two hundred teachers when a county like Kakamega has a shortage of seven thousand teachers yet Kekamega is one of the counties that produces the highest number of teachers annually in the country. That unfairness should come to an end.”
The three days conference which started on Thursday, saw teachers taken through lessons on how best to manage schools and life skills like dealing with stress at work and back at home.”
It brought together over two thousand headteachers from the four counties of Western region i.e Busia, Bungoma, Kakamega and Vihiga.
