Early Childhood Development and Education (ECDE) teachers in Kisii County have suspended their planned protests which were slated for today.
Led by the Kenya Union of Pre-Primary Education Teachers (KUNOPPET) Kisii branch interim Chairperson Lucy Maisiba, the teachers said that they had suspended the demos to pave way for intervention by the county government.
“We have suspended the strike because we are also parents who empathize with our children,” she said.
She asked Kisii Governor Simba Arati to hasten the reconstitution of the Public Service Board (PSB) to ensure their grievances are listened to and taken care of instead of issuing threats.
Maisiba highlighted going for a full year without payment, underpayment, job insecurity and poor working conditions as some of the burning issues.
She noted that some of the teachers were widows who solely depended on the job to feed their families and regretted that their employer had impoverished instead of empowering them.
The Unionist added that the County was the only one in the country that had not employed ECDE teachers on permanent and pensionable terms, and appealed to the union National Chairman Lawrence Odunga to petition their request to the Council of Governors (CoG) for them.
A month ago, the teachers gave the county government a one-month notice to respond to their grievances or they down their tools today but Governor Arati gave them an ultimatum to; either continue working or he would sack them and give volunteers their jobs.
He later asked them to exercise patience as he reconstituted the PSB.
The Kisii County Education Board Chairman Prof. Henry Onderi had suggested that the National Government place ECDE teachers under TSC saying that county governments have exhibited incompetence in managing them.
By Enock Okong’o
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