KEPSHA has maintained that the Junior Secondary School, JSS teachers have free will to choose which teachers unions to belong to as long as it caters for their needs.no mandate to restrict the Junior Secondary School, JSS teachers to subscribe to certain trade unions following their full absorption by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) early this year.
According to the KEPSHA national chairman Faudi Ali, said his organization have no intention of directing the about 40,000 JSS teachers incorporated into the TSC payroll to either join the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) or the Kenya National Union of Teachers,(KNUT)
In an interview with a local radio station on Tuesday Ali said KEPSHA like other welfare organizations was not involved in the politics of trade movements and as such the JSS teachers currently domiciled in primary schools were free to make their choices between KUPPET and KNUT they deem fit to cater for their interests.
The KEPSHA boss explained that the fact that the JSS teachers were working under the leadership and control of the heads of primary schools and heads of Institutions (HoI) they were not obligated to follow the instructions of whether not to subscribe to KUPPET or KNUT and any other trade organization.
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“Ours is to ensure they are in class doing what is required from them: teaching,” he said adding that high integrity; orderliness and dual-respect were also integral parts of the teaching fraternity.
KUPPET and KNUT are entangled in bitter war to secure the membership from the JSS teachers since the inception of the CBE to increase their financial bases but as fate would be, some secondary school teachers have remained loyal to the KNUT even after the establishment of the rival secondary school group 25 years ago.
KUPPET observes that since the JSS teachers are graduate and post-graduate tutors posted to teach in post-primary classes they automatically qualify to belong to them, a stand opposed by KNUT that insists all teachers staffed in primary institutions are covered by the union.
There has been a stalemate between the JSS teachers and the primary school heads and HoI with the former complaining of harassment and overwork from the latter who accuse the JSS teachers of insubordination among other contentious issues.
The JSS tutors have, however, maintained that the Junior schools should be given a standalone tier to manage its affairs and rescue its teachers from the plight management tussles.
Ali said the 2-6-6-3 CBE is on the right track except for the cleaning of the gray areas like the harmonizing the relationship the primary school heads and the JSS teachers and preparing all the teachers for all the stages, provision of equipment and releasing of capitation funds on time to make the CBE a success story.
BY ABISAI AMUGUNE
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