A teachers’ lobby group has raised concern over the alarming rate at which school heads especially secondary school Principals are interdicting teachers in the country, saying this will cause confusion in the education sector.
The Kenya Teachers in Hardship and Arid Areas Welfare Association (KETHAWA) has urged school bosses to embrace Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms that are allowed in the education sector.
The Association’s National Secretary Wangonya Wangenye told Education News in a recent interview that interdicting a teacher should be a last resort after all other avenues of addressing a dispute had failed.
The association held that interdiction should not be the first thing a Principal should think of since it can kill the working morale of many teachers.
He urged the school heads to embrace ADR mechanisms in resolving disputes between them and members of their teaching and non-teaching staff saying even going to court also takes a long time to resolve matters.
“I request all heads of institutions to invoke the interdiction clause as an option of last resort. Interdiction is so painful and regrettable administrative action. Legal battles are equally expensive and draining regardless of who wins the case. Let’s embrace the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism to resolve our disputes before resorting to severe disciplinary actions like interdiction,” said Wangenye.
According to Wangenye, today’s legal system is promoting and encouraging ADR, which is easier and more affordable and leaves all parties in an amicable relationship.
“There is no dispute that cannot be resolved through mediation, arbitration, negotiations, and dialogue, save for grave disciplinary issues like carnal knowledge, theft, robbery, and such other acts which are criminal. There is nothing painful and stressful, like an interdiction which leaves one party without income, particularly during this difficult economic time,” he added.
His sentiments come shortly after a recent case where a Deputy Principal of a certain school in Nairobi was interdicted for permitting hawkers into the school compound and failing to properly coordinate and organize the school’s annual general meeting (AGM) and insubordination of the Principal.
An interdiction letter seen by Education News to that effect partly read, “You permitted strangers into the school compound to hawk their merchandise inside staffroom B and outside Form 4 class thereby compromising the safety of learners in the institution; on 16th March 2023 between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., you failed to properly co-ordinate and organize the logistics of the School’s AGM meeting resulting in a disorganized official event…consequently, you are hereby interdicted with effect from 23rd June 2023,” read the interdiction letter in part.
In early June, another teacher at a Secondary School in Nandi County was interdicted by the TSC for allegedly eating all bananas and drinking milk in the Principal’s office, and allegedly storming the kitchen and forcing the cooks to serve him chicken meant for visitors.
In a letter addressed to the teacher by a County TSC deputy director, the teacher was accused of breaking the rules, hence his interdiction.
By Roy Hezron
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