By Musyoka Kaleti
Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Embu branch Executive Secretary Josphat Kathumi has called on the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to adopt the motion moved in the National Assembly by Lurambi Member of Parliament (MP) Titus Khamala to reverse the teacher delocalization policy.
Speaking in Embu town, Kathumi stated that since TSC initiated the policy in 2018, many teachers had suffered psychologically, others fell into depression and some lost morale for work.
He said that many affected teachers had resigned from work leaving many schools understaffed.
Kathumi noted that the move by Khamala to rescue teachers from the transfers will restore many broken families brought about by the policy.
”This delocalization issue has completely tortured teachers, you take a lady to Mombasa then her husband to Busia and others are young families. This is punishing teachers. It is time now for TSC to reverse this thing,” he said.
He also stated that the performance levels in schools had dropped as many teachers were only available in schools on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday since they used Monday and Friday as travel days to and from school.
The KNUT official further said that the policy implementation was rushed without public participation noting that the Commission completely mismanaged it.
While moving the motion in Parliament, Titus Khamala told TSC to have a thorough review of the policy and involve teachers in order to match the laws put in place by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The motion was supported by majority of MPs who said that teachers should be allowed to work within their locality.
However lawmakers from marginalized communities opposed the motion saying that the delocalization of teachers had addressed the challenge of understaffed schools in their communities.
