The Kenya Teachers in Hardship and Arid Areas Welfare Association (KETHAWA) has called on the government to award and increase hardship allowances to all teachers in the country to cushion them against the current hard economic times.
KETHAWA National Secretary Wangonya Wangenye decried that the government had decided to unilaterally deduct 1.5% of teachers’ salaries to finance the government’s housing programme despite all petitions by teachers objecting the same.
“The petitions also fell on deaf ears of Members of Parliament (MPs) who have lost their independence to check the excesses of the Executive against workers. At the same time the cost of electricity and the cost of commuting to working places has gone up,” he said.
The union boss said that some teachers are using the little salary they get to even feed pupils who come to school hungry since some schools have not yet received capitation funds, adding that some parents equally have no money to pay school fees.
He noted that this has affected the concentration of pupils and students thus they look up to the teachers who are now forced to play the role of teacher and parent.
Citing all these, he termed the country a hardship working environment regardless where one is working and “it’s only prudent if the government awards all teachers and other workers a hardship allowance to cushion them against this menace”.
Wangenye said that the same allowance should be pegged as a percentage and not as a flat rate so that it automatically adjusts upwards with the ever increasing inflation rate.
He added that it was also prudent for the government to compensate whatever they will deduct from teachers’ and other workers’ payslips in order to avoid leaving them more damaged than they are already.
The union boss said that if the government ignores all these pleas, teachers will be forced to stage demonstrations to press the government to listen, and that fails, the government should be dissolved saying it does not make sense to have a government that does not listen to its citizens.
By Roy Hezron
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