The Special Needs Education Teachers (SNETs) Group National Chairman Edwin Juma Gituma has said that some special schools lack capitation and others get very little compared to the learners needs.
“It’s very unfortunate that some of the special needs schools and units don’t receive capitation, and some of the schools which receive capitation, the amount of money is very little and many times the money reaches the schools when it’s already late making it hard for the teachers and learners,” Gituma said.
He said most of the special schools have inadequate teachers due to retirement, exit to other fields and others have transferred to regular schools due to stagnation in one Job Group for more than 10-15 years.
He added that some teachers handling learners with disabilities don’t get their special salaries and others have no official deployment letters from the Teacher Service Commission (TSC) and this takes more time than expected.
The SNETs national chairman said that special schools and special units take long time before a teacher is replaced after s/he has retired a thing which leads to understaffing.
He said another challenge is that Special Needs Education (SNE) teachers are being denied a chance to choose a union of their choice by TSC and that majority of these teachers find themselves into Kenya Union of Special Needs Education Teachers (KUSNET) without consent.
“We feel that we have been denied our rights as SNETs, we are not allowed to join union of our choice. Most of us have found ourselves into KUSNET without our consent. This is so disgusting and inhumane,” the SNETs national chairman lamented.
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Another challenge, Gituma said, is that the SNE teachers are deducted illegal deductions in their payslips in favour of KUSNET by TSC without consent, a thing he said is illegal and that not action is taken by teacshers employer.
He notes that SNE teachers were shortchanged by TSC in 2018 during Career Progression Guidelines (CPG) implementation as the same was never done to them.
The SNETs national chairman now requests the TSC to ensure there is proper staffing in special schools and special units and that all SNE teachers deployed into either special units or special schools to be paid special salary.
Gituma also appealed to the national government to give enough capitation to all special units and special schools.
He also wants TSC to stop transferring SNE teachers from to the regular schools and those who were transferred to be taken back to their schools.
The SNETs also wants TSC and KUSNET to stop deducting them money in their payslips immediately and refund all money collected illegally from the teachers who did not sign up agreement with them.
By Jeff Mwangi
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