Blow to JSS Teachers As TSC To Deduct 2% For KNUT
Teachers in Junior Secondary Schools Heads (JSS) will henceforth be Knut (Kenya National Union of Teachers) members.
The statement has been resolved by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), and all junior secondary teachers are now Knut members.
Similar to their elementary school counterparts, teachers will contribute 2% of their base wage each month to the union’s activities.
Many junior secondary school teachers have already received their pay. However, very few P1 teachers who were assigned to teach Grade 7 have received payment.
Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) and Knut engaged in a membership fight.
While Knut favored moving junior secondary to elementary schools, Kuppet pushed to keep it in secondary schools.
However, in response to the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform’s suggestions, the Ministry mandated that JSS be located in elementary schools for a number of reasons, including taking into account the age of the students, the availability of resources, and cultural considerations.
This month, Knut and Kuppet brought up the JSS argument once more and questioned what the difference was.
While Knut mostly represents teachers in primary schools, Kuppet often represents educators working in secondary schools and other settings.
Regardless of the organizations they work for, teachers are free to pick which union to join.
One teacher was engaged by the TSC for every JSS in public institutions after the introduction of JSS.
Given that teachers pay a monthly subscription fee to their unions, this might have served as the hidden catalyst for the differences between the two unions.
Their employer, the TSC, deducts the sum from their pay before sending it to the unions.
Every member makes a monthly contribution to their union equal to around 2% of their basic salary. Knut’s constitution states that the total monthly deductions cannot exceed Sh1,200.
When contacted for response, Knut and Kuppet both denied taking part in a recruitment process for the new teachers.
Collins Oyuu, secretary general of Knut, stated that the JSS was dealing with a number of issues that needed to be resolved quickly. He stated that it was not an issue right now to sign up the new members.
Reiterating the member number issue, he remarked, “Our hardest times were between 2018 and 2021 when we lost members from over 180,000 to about 11,000.”
“By early 2021, our offices were shut down, and headquarters employees and branch secretaries were not paid.”
The union accumulated a lot of obligations during that time, including money owed in taxes to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and retirement payments to members.
He claims that the union launched a strong membership drive in July 2021.
We currently have more than 170,000 members. He implied that the union is no longer in desperate need of new members by saying, “We have done our best to pay debts, opened branch offices, all of our full-time staff salaries were reinstated, and we are back on our feet.”
“That is misplaced; we are not battling for members. Because the law is clear, we already know too much. A member can choose which union they want to be a part of; no one can force them to join. Fighting among the members is irrelevant. We have secondary school teachers because of this, he informed PD.
The serious issue of instituting JSS in secondary schools, according to Kuppet National Chairman Milemba Omboko, goes beyond politization of the issue. He also rejected the idea that the union was in a member-competition.
“The JSS is wasting its time; we are not fighting for our members. He explained the reasoning behind the union’s campaign to have JSS housed in secondary schools. “We have qualified teachers in primary but they may not be conversant with some subjects, especially sciences, which are required in forming the learners’ pathways,” he said.
According to Kuppet, which has roughly 117,00 members, study is being done on the state of JSS. But it takes a quite different stance from Knut, the Ministry of Education, and the government.
In fact, the disagreements between the two unions’ stances began last week when Kuppet called for the dissolution of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER), claiming it had done more to create confusion than it had done to provide solutions for the JSS transition.
The union argued that the government still has time to place JSS in secondary schools.
The union leaders said that expanding classes in secondary schools, which already have laboratories, would be simpler and more practical than trying to establish entirely new infrastructure, such as labs in primary schools.
Johnston Nzioka, chairman of the Kenya Primary School Heads Association and the Knut boss, responded by stating those demanding for the working party to be disbanded should cease creating uncertainty.
“Some people are asking for the distribution of PWPER for non-beneficial causes. We are aware that some industry participants, particularly trade unions, are only concerned with maintaining their membership at the expense of the interests of our children, according to the joint statement.
Oyuu contends that membership shouldn’t be used as a justification for pushing and pulling at this point, when much time has been lost and proper learning hasn’t yet begun in some JSS classrooms.
“It is absurd and hypocritical that certain persons who took part in PWPER’s opinion-gathering process are now demanding its dissolution on the grounds that their interests and viewpoints are not taken into account. We must advance, and it should be understood that the interests of our country in the education of our children should come first.
He reiterated that Knut was unconcerned about the membership question.
The law is superior to all other agreements in this straightforward recognition agreement matter. Nobody should discuss the advantages of membership in relation to junior secondary placement, whether in the primary or secondary section, but here we are, with them living in the primary, he added. “I don’t want to press my point about where they live. I’m speaking and quoting from the union’s guidelines in my argument about which union they decide to join.
A union is stronger when it has a large membership while negotiating Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) with the employer. Instead of the previous two years, CBAs are now often negotiated by teachers’ unions for five years. The two unions may continue to engage in a numbers game as more instructors are expected to be employed in order to improve JSS and get over its growing pains.
Blow to JSS Teachers As TSC To Deduct 2% For KNUT
