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The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has called for improved pay and better working conditions for the country's 400,000 teachers, including the provision of professional counselling services to help them cope with financial burdens and work-related stress.
The union wants the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to employ professional counsellors and deploy them at county and zonal levels to offer counselling services to teachers. The services should also be extended to learners across the country.
Despite the teaching workforce expanding by 100,000 over the past three years and the implementation of Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) that provide for better pay and improved working conditions, many teachers are still unable to make ends meet and continue to grapple with work- and family-related stress.
TSC has secured funding in the current budget allocations set to be tabled in Parliament by Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi to transition 20,000 teachers from internship to permanent and pensionable terms, a move expected to ease pressure arising from the wide teacher-pupil ratio gap.
