KNUT and KUPPET do not fight for the ordinary teacher yet claiming to fight for them. There are pertinent issues affecting the ordinary teacher which both KNUT and KUPPET don’t care about. 1. Two Medical Schemes Thievery Teachers were under NHIF until Sossion and his Co. forced teachers to drink another medical scheme called ‘AON’ and every month every teacher pays for these 2 medical schemes. Why 2 medical schemes?
Teachers pay billions monthly to the giant ‘AON’ yet majority of the hospitals listed in the scheme either do not take the insurance cover, have no medicine nor services and teachers are frustrated only rescued by NHIF. KNUT and KUPPET are silent about this, why?
Do they benefit from the billions teachers’ pay monthly to the 1 or both of the medical schemes?
Where ordinary teachers consulted into being signed into 2 medical schemes?
When another giant called ‘housing finance’ was being introduced to teachers payslip to rob them the more, both KNUT and KUPPET did nothing, thanks to Cotu Secretary General Francis Atwoli for standing and fighting for workers in court including teachers. Where was KNUT and KUPPET? 2. Ordinary Teacher Want Transfers The sensationalized transfer you here is of about 3,000 teachers, who are heads, not the ordinary teacher. As Sossion and Co. fight against transfers, the opposite is true for the ordinary teacher – they want transfers yet KNUT and KUPPET cares not.
Why should teachers be transferred after every 5 or 10 years? For the same reason after every 5 or 10 years we need a new president and leaders - for the same reasons diapers must be changed. TSC is right on transfers.
The ordinary teacher cries in frustration looking for a transfer yet Sossion and Co. is fighting only for the few against being transferred; 3000 heads vs 250000 teachers – is this right?
One argument I have heard all through the holiday season as KNUT roots for this strike is how TSC is destroying marriages by transferring the husband to Kilifi while wife to Mandera and they asked the question, ‘who will be opening the servers’?
Yet the ordinary teacher is either employed or transferred very far from his/her family, husband or wife, and both KNUT and KUPPET don’t care neither fight for them to be employed/transferred close to their husbands or wives for the sake of marriage and the family unit.
My friends since finishing school over 7 years ago cannot be employed by TSC because they are married with families and what TSC does is to send them far away from their families which they refuse for the sake of God, marriage and family, yet KNUT and KUPPET doesn’t care.
Large percentage of all married ordinary teachers are separated from their families, husband or wife, through TSC while KNUT and KUPPET cares not about them only fighting for the heads few head of schools. Why is KNUT fighting for the heads of schools?
Because school heads are the top members of KNUT and KNUT is heading to election. The ordinary teacher has no voice is both KNUT and KUPPET. 3. Over Working One worker overworked in Kenya is a teacher. Look at the teachers in boarding school how they work day and night even on weekends and even parents have turned teachers to parents, leaving all duties of a parent to a teacher including changing diapers.
Teachers want clear laid out working hours, if 8am – 5pm, let it be so. They want clear working terms and clearly laid out lesson a teacher is supposed to have per week.
Teachers also have families they need to take care of and their personal growth.
When will KNUT and KUPPET fight for this and make sure that it’s implemented on the ground? 4. Poor Pay If you look across all learned in Kenya, Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, etc, teachers are the least paid and this is a disrespect and abuse since all of the most paid pass through the hands of same teachers. Politicians, Mps, MCAs, etc who we all know about their education papers are paid more; why?
It’s for this reason that all loan lending instructions run for teachers - in other words, a teacher is so poorly paid s/he can only live on debts and cannot afford anything including buy a house even if s/he saves his/her entire life.
And I ask a question; is a teacher asked individually whether s/he wants to join KNUT or KUPPET or both, which means money substrated monthly from his/her payslip, or both KNUT and KUPPET collude with TSC? The latter is true.
Every employed teacher finds him/herself in these union without their knowledge and it is another frustration by both TSC, Knut and KUPPET to be removed from one of these unions for they do not want to lose your money monthly.
I am not a teacher but I see their pains frustrations slavery day and night and instead of KNUT and KUPPET fighting for them, they are chasing rats instead of going after the giants and elephants affecting our teachers and media after KNUT and KUPPET sensationalizing rats trying to make them elephants.
Media needs to go down to the teachers in classrooms and ask them the things they face, get the truth from the ground, instead of just reporting what KNUT and KUPPET is saying.
It does not mean that when KNUT and KUPPET speak, they speak the Truth. It does not mean when they rise fighting they are indeed fighting for the ordinary teacher. Sometimes they fight for their stomachs, for few, for cartels, for politicians, for the wind and teachers are left suffering yet paying billions monthly to these unions.
It’s time ordinary teachers unite and have a voice - thank God today we have social media, Facebook, Twitter, etc, and they can air out the serious issues affecting them – have a voice!