An Association representing teachers in arid and hardship areas, the Kenya Teachers in Hardship and Arid Areas Welfare Association (KETHAWA), has asked Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to consider reviewing upward the hardship allowance by 40 per cent in the next cycle of the 2025-2029 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
In a letter to the Commission dated April 16, 2025, the Association National Secretary Wangonya Wangenye reiterated that failure to incorporate the association’s input in the 2025 – 2029 CBA will be met with all manners of lawful resistance from teachers working in hardship areas, since they will not sit back as discrimination backdating many years back is perpetuated against their members.
“It has come to the notice of this Kenya Teachers in Hardship and Arid Areas Welfare Association (KETHAWA) that there are advanced negotiations on review of salaries and allowances for teachers to cover CBA for the next cycle of 2025 – 2029. We have also noticed that the proposals tabled or intended to be tabled before you by the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) proposes and increase in: Basic salary House allowance Commuter Allowance and Subsistence allowance, amongst other allowances,” said Wangenye in the letter.
“We have also noted that the union has not proposed to you any increase of Hardship Allowance and that it should be retained at the current rate. As much as we appreciate the unions’ role and legal mandate to negotiate and sign CBA for and on behalf of teachers, we also note that this is an outright affront and discrimination of teachers working in Hardship and Arid areas of Kenya which is a constitutional violation of their rights,” he added.
According to Wangenye in the letter which was copied to both KUPPET, Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), and Kenya Union of Special Needs Teachers (KUSNET), hardship allowance is the only allowance pegged on these teachers by virtue of them working in these areas, and failure to consider upward review it will only escalate the challenges and suffering by these teachers which has exhibited for years.
The Association made similar demands in the letter dated April 14, 2023
By Roy Hezron
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