Junior Secondary School intern teachers in Trans Nzoia County on Monday staged a peaceful demonstration on the streets of Kitale town to push Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) to comply with the 17 April 2024 ruling of the Employment and Labour Relations Court.
Justice Byrum Ongaya ruled that internship is illegal and asked TSC to employ the 46,000 interns on permanent and pensionable terms and compensate them.
The interns delivered their petition to the office of Governor George Natembeya and were received by Governance Chief Officer Sammy Sichangi.
They later matched to TSC offices domiciled in office of the County Commissioner but were unable to deliver their petition because the TSC County Director was out of office.
Addressing the press, the interns led by their association President Aaron Wafula vowed never to go back to school until all their grievances are conclusively addressed.
“We want to categorically state that we shall not go back school anytime soon. Doing that is an illegality as per the ruling of Justice Ongaya and we shall not commit such an offence,” Wafula said.
JSS teachers’ demand to TSC
Walter Namainyah, the Secretary General said TSC should confirm them because their are fully trained, registered and licensed to teach.
“TSC exploited us but now we demand that they compensates us. We also want our terms of service converted from two-year contract to permanent and pensionable,” Namainyah stated.
On her part, Jecinta Kibonei asked parents of Junior Secondary School students not to send their children to school because there is no learning.
Similar sentiments were shared by Philip Cherwo who is in charge of interns welfare.
Why JSS teachers are on strike
He stated that majority of them cannot discharge their mandate as expected because they are battling depression.
“How can an intern who earns a paltry Ksh 17,000 teach learners properly?” Cherwo asked.
They intern teachers blamed their employer for giving politicians TSC employment letters who in turn dish out in public events.
“TSC is an independent comission. However, they the commission under Nancy Macharia has delegated its constitutional role to greedy and selfish politicians. This has led to unfair employment where recent graduates are employed on permanent and pensionable basis while old graduates are working as interns,” said one of the interns.
The 46,000 interns were contracted by the government in two cohorts of 26,000 and 20,000 to help transition learns from primary to junior secondary schools.
Their nationwide strike came at a time schools are re-opening for second term.
