The Teachers Service Commission, (TSC) has for the first time come out to explain the riddle surrounding the retired teachers stating that it cleared all the payments for about 24,000 retired teachers in the 1997 pay agreement that was awarded by the late President Daniel Arap Moi.
A senior official at the Commission told Education News in a recent exclusive interview that the teachers received all their benefits as per the High Court judgment which was delivered by Justice David Maraga in 2008 in a case filed by them in 2006.
It all started in 1997 when the then Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General Ambrose Adeya Adongo led a most successful teachers strike demanding for a 300 per cent pay rise.
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The government under the then President Moi, under pressure, in October 1997 agreed to a 150-200 per cent increase, to be implemented over a five-year period, backdated to July 1997. The agreement was later reduced into a Legal Notice (Number 534) with Moi only implementing the first phase, that is, July 1, 1997 to June 30, 1998.
Between July 1, 1998 to June 30, 2003 the government said it had no money to carter for the salary increment hence the teachers who retired within that period, went home without the phases, a move that made them to file a plaint in 2006.
When the then President Mwai Kibaki came into power in 2003 under the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) government, he negotiated a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the teachers from July 1, 2003 to June 30, 2007, which he implemented in full.
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According to TSC, the judgment that was delivered by Justice Maraga in 2008 only awarded the teachers their retirement benefits, which in their records they cleared all the benefits for about 24,000 retired teachers. This was after a long court battle between the retired teachers and the Commission (which will be covered in full in Education News Vol. 299).
The Commission has noted that any teacher not yet paid within that period can file the claim with TSC adding that the matter of retired teachers was concluded by the court of appeal in May 20, 2025 which dismissed the appeal for non-attendance with no further litigation.
(A detailed version of this article will be covered in full under Special Report on Education News Vol. 299. Don’t Miss)
By Hezron Roy
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