Education Cabinet Secretary Magoha George has today laughed at the latest report released that projects approximately 100,000 school going girls got impregnated within the period of March and June while schools were closed. 

Speaking in Eldoret while inspecting the production of face masks at Rivatex in preparation of the resumption of studies, the CS said the numbers are highly exeggerated adding that the Ministry of Education has joined hands with the Ministry of Health to get the factual numbers which shall be made public. 

Professor Magoha doubted whether pregnancies would show before the end of three months, noting the reports on the pregnancies were cooked. 

This is after the reports stated that more than 100,000 school girls have been impregnated between the month of March and June, with Machakos County alone reporting over 4000 cases of early pregnancies. 

Machakos county Children’s Department Officer, Salome Muthama, revealed that the cases have rapidly increased since the COVID-19 outbreak.

This comes just a day after the Catholic Bishops rejected the proposals by various Kenyans to introduce Sex education into the education system.

University and Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) institutions may resume studies earlier than primary and secondary schools. Education Secretary Professor Magoha categorically stated that studies resumption in both primary schools and secondary learning institutions are hindered by lack of enough infrastructure and congestions. 

While meeting TVET principals from Western in Kisumu on Friday, CS Magoha said TVET colleges and universities have enough infrastructure for social distancing adding that TVET colleges can easily adjust its normal programmes

Education CS expressed his confidence in the TVET Principal Secretary Julius Juan who assured the Ministry of Education that TVET institutions are capable of making their face masks.

He expressed his regrets in the increasing number of COVID-19 victims but assured Kenyans that the government will work as if schools were to be opened on September 1 adding that reopening of schools will be impossible to if cases will still be high.

Professor Magoha who's a physician by profession said he will rely on the Health ministry's advice on reopening of the institutions emphasizing that the reopening of studies will only happen after the situation is stabilised and Covid-19 cases drop down for 14 days continuously adding that no nation in the universe has tried to reopen schools when the Covid-19 cases are still rising.

Parents and other education stakeholders have been questioning the preparedness of learning institutions on reopening schools in September after CS Magoha announced that each classroom will accommodate between 15-20 learners. He said learning institutions with infrastructural challenges will erect tents to accommodate the learners. The idea was protested by school heads on Saturday who said it's not practical.

Education CS admitted challenges in reopening boarding facilities especially when it comes to bed capacity. Dr Juan announced that the Eldoret Polytechnic had already donated about 240 medical beds to Uasin Gishu County. Kisumu Polytechnic is also producing solar-powered handwashing machines which will help curb the spread of the Coronavirus.

Education CS said that the government is exploring various ways including learning facilities for the learning institutions as he cited social distance as the biggest challenge but noting that social distance should not stop the country from preparing to reopen in September.

The CS, however, admitted that the government can't double or triple learning facilities in schools since the available facilities has taken years to build adding that the government may readmit learners in shifts. Magoha said overhauling the school calendar is impossible due to the East African Community protocols.

Kenya National Union Teachers had called on the Ministry of Education to scrap the delocalisation policy to allow teachers operate in their home counties however Education CS Prof Magoha dismissed the calls terming it petty politics which doesn't deserve his attention.

Universities and Technical and Vocational Education Training institutions may resume studies earlier than primary and secondary schools. CS says Schools Won't Reopen If Covid-19 Cases Will Be High

Education Ministry has been given up to tomorrow to announce the resumption date of learning. Further, George Magoha must clarify openly to Kenyans, about the new basic education calendar and tertiary calendar for learning institutions as announced by President Kenyatta on Madaraka celebration last month. 

Speaking at Harambee house on Tuesday, President Kenyatta announced that the Ministry of Education will update the country on the mandatory level of preparedness required by all stakeholders and school administrators as well as leaders of Teachers Training Colleges.

June 4 had been set by the Ministry of Education, as the re-opening date but the tone changed due to the high spread of Covid-19 cases that saw CS Magoha on May change the plans noting that he was not ready to gamble with the lives of students.

The president admitted that the country is currently divided into two rights dilemma on whether to reopen schools or not. 

In a meeting between President Kenyatta and health experts, it was agreed tha the country has reached a reasonable level of preparedness for reopening. With this expert opinion president Kenyatta assured the country that there will be a phased reopening.

Uhuru however said should the situation deteriorate the country will have to revert to a lockdown.

He however said that after 21 days of studying interactions and spread of the disease. The country might have no choice but return to lockdown if the situation worsens

Health CAS Dr Aman Rashid said on Sunday that it is impossible for the government to test over 300,000 before before the scheduled reopening and even after 14 days as spearhede by Education CS George Magoha.

Aman said the situation is made worse by the cost of conducting the tests and difficulties being experienced in the supply lines.

This comes after Education CS George Magoha said that all teachers and support staff be tested for the Coronavirus before schools resume as it will require over ksh. 1billion to conduct the process.

 Nancy Macharia has been reappointed to head Teachers Service Commission for another term. The position at Teachers Service Commission had been led by Mr Gabriel Lengoiboni for 11 years where Nancy Macharia later took over. 

 Macharia's re-appointment has been recieved with mixed reactions with many opinions aired regarding her previous term performance at the commission. 

 Ms Macharia will be heading the secretariat and the accounting of the commission. She will be the executor of the commission's decision. 

 She will be charged with the responsibility of ensuring swift coordination and accomplishment of the commission's mandate. 

 Law Society of Kenya through it's president Mr. Nelson Havi had wrote to the Attorney-General expressing its disappointment in the reappointment of Macharia without subjecting the vacancy to a competitive procedure as outlined in law. 

 One of her greatest criticism is drawn from her claimed tireless efforts to destablelise teachers’ unions through her divide-and-rule policy. She has been mainly accused of favoring Kuppet while side-lining the Knut in most of her dealings. 

 In what was seen as war between KNUT and TSC last year, Macharia's commission de-registered Knut leader, SG Wilson Sossion as a teacher and went further to notify the giant union of its plan to end their over 50 year old agreement of recognition. 

 Ms Macharia’s previous term was also marked with a great failure to sort out the country’s teacher shortage despite more than 309,000 registered teachers being jobless in the country. 

 However we cannot rule out her greatest achievements in the previous term of her leadership at the commission. She headed the Sh54 billion CBA deal that saw teachers’ salaries increased with the last phase of implementation being witnessed this month. 

 The 2016 CBAdeal greatly reduced  perennial strikes that was rampant before. It was in her first month of her term that she spearheded a multibillion shilling medical insurance scheme for teachers that has now seen more than 1 million teachers and their spouses and children benefit from the scheme.

 CEO Macharia introduced contracts of performance and Career Progression Guidelines (PCG) in the teaching profession. In what fuelled the disagreement between KNUT and TSC Knut members were left out of the salary increase in 2019, as TSC hid behind a court ruling that is yet to be determined. 

 It was this decision that led to massive quitting of teachers from Knut to Kuppet as others chose to remain unionless. TSC went further to deny Knut remittance of union dues which led to KNUT's salary greatly reduced.

 Teachers of Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) now threatens to strike when learning resumes in January next year in what they term as impartiality and mistreatment of Knut affiliated teachers when it comes to the Scheme of Services.

 The Secretary General of the giant union Honorable Wilson Sossion has accused Teachers Service Commission (TSC) of ignoring Kenya National Union of Teachers members an act that he claims has denied more than thirty thousand teachers their rightful promotions and increment of salary. 

 Citing a promotion by TSC that saw more 47,000 Kenyan teachers being promoted to job group C1 from job group B5 via Career Progression Guidelines (CPG), Sossion says it is evident that teachers who have benefited from this promotion are either belonging to KUPPET or do not belong to any union. 

 It's for this reason that Kenya National Union of Teachers threatens to engage Teachers Service Commission through industrial action when studies resumes next year until the 2017-2021 CBA is honored, a move that is likely to jeopardize resumption of learning in January 2021. 

 Honorable Sossion claims that teachers are Kenyans and are protected under the Kenyan constitution to exercise their rights and freedoms through boycotting classrooms adding that it is wrong to punish KNUT's teachers intentionally. 

 In 2018 Dec the commission had moved to court to stop KNUT teachers from protesting, after Secretary General Sossion issued them a strike notice over the CBA’s discrimination. The secretary general of Central Organization of Trade Unions mr Francis Atwoli then intervened as a mediator between the two side but all was in vain as the case was left before the Labor Court unresolved. 

 The court through Justice Ongaya stated that it was the responsibility of Teachers Service Commission to promote teachers but mantained that TSC and KNUT should sit down and revise the scheme of services. 

 Teachers affiliated to the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) in Bungoma County have thrown blames to Teachers Service Commission (TSC) for failing to promote one hundred and thirty-six deputy principals to principals.

 Led by Augustine Luketelo county Executive-Secretary Mr Augustine Luketelo they complained of being sidelined by TSC despite having attended the Dec 2019 interviews that took place in all counties.

 To their surprise, they claim that TSC has not released the results of the interview up to now despite other counties being attended to.The county branch claims that for ten years their deputy principals have stagnated in the same position even after demonstrating their leadership capacity.

THEIR DEMANDS

 The Bungoma County KUPPET branch has strongly demanded that TSC stops discriminating the 136 teachers. Further, they want the commission to immediately release the interview results and promote the deputy principals before deployment of other principals in their county.

 The teachers have threatened not to allow any importation of principals from other counties to Bungoma county should TSC ignore their pleas, adding that no outsider will set foot in their land unless their promotion procedure is honoured.

The Ministry of Education, last week released 11,200,000 shillings to learning institutions to improve learning in both primary and secondary schools. The Nemis reflection as on Thur 6th last week revealed 3725 shillings per student has amounted for tuition and other activities in learning institutions. 

The data information lasted for some hours before it was pulled down. The information in the public domain was that the money was returned to the Ministry of Education. According to the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association Chairman Mr Indimuli, the money was not sent back to the government but it was erroneously misinterpreted  on the Nemis. 

He said Nemis was mistakenly pre-uploaded even before releasing of money was completed. He said there was no signature by the Basic Education Permanent Secretary on the release of funds which indicated reversal in the Nemis for procedural disbursement. He added that those funds will be paid to schools starting from today on Friday. 

His sentiments were echoed by the Chief Administrative Secretary who said he's had the cry and disappointment of teachers but called for patience as the matter was being solved by the Ministry of Education. Many principals have been receiving calls from their teachers and suppliers asking for their payments.

He confirmed that the money was released as announced by education Cabinet Secretary Prof Magoha however it was not reversed as claimed by many media houses. He noted that after approval of the funds and reflection on the ifmis status the exchequer had to approve the money in which the process is in the final process.

He assured teachers that the money will land in their pockets before the end of next week and if it won't be so, the CAS will face teachers head-on and give them an explanation for why they would have not been paid.

He said it was his last explanation for a press concerning this money calling for patience among teachers. He admitted that the cry made by teachers is right and justified but called for vigilance and decorum especially on his side and on his social media accounts.

Although teachers won't get paid 100 per cent of what they normally earn, CAS assured them that they will get a substantive and rational amount of money that befits them. Regarding private schools, he noted that the government is in consultation to fund them with loans amounting to 7 billion shillings and the announcement of whether they will get that money or not will be made public.

Education CS Magoha had assured that all BOM teachers and non teaching staff that they will at last get payments after confirmation of their detiails presented before the Ministry of Education. While in Eldoret during his normal duties tour, he made it clear that the money won't be stolen at all cost. 

Since school closure, BOM teachers have been facing tough financial conditions. Without salary payments, teachers have been left with none other choice of diong manual jobs in order to pay their bills. 

Early in July, President Muigai Kenyatta ordered the treasury and Education Ministry to release funds to to pay BOM teachers. Later on approximately KSh.11b was disbursed to institutions to pay teaching and non-teaching staff. The money was refunded back to the Ministry of Education for procedural appropriation of data.  

Magoha said he's not ready to expose children to Covid-19 citing that more than 100,000 students in America hace contacted the virus since school reopening. 
He however admitted that some leaning institutions such as Eldoret Polytechnic and Rift Valley TTI were fully prepared for reopening. 

Education PS Belio Kipsang’ gave education directors in all counties minimum conditions for BOM teachers to receive their money.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is set to train 18,000 more teachers on Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) before the re-opening of schools. According toTeachers Service Commission (TSC) chief executive Nancy Macharia, suspension of CBC training was met due to the government ban on public gathering as a measure to curb the spread of coronavirus infections.  While appearing before the National Assembly this week on Wednesday to respond to assertions by Homa Bay MP Peter Kaluma on the interdiction of the two hundred and forty-five teachers over charges of incitement and disturbance of CBC teacher-training concourses, Nancy Macharia affirmed that the Commission was intending to exercise about 6,000 Grade 3 and Grade five CBC teachers training. She said she is positive for another training of 12,000 special needs teachers in August 2020.
    
According to TSC register record, CBC teachers totalling to about 339,743 were exercised after April, while roughly 200 teachers got suspended over insubordination to their managers and provocation on the CBC practice coordinated by the Ministry of Education and TSC. 42 teachers were then sacked with another 30 teachers receiving warning letters following the disruption to the CBC training. Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) defended and called the reinstation of the suspended and sacked teachers but all was in vain.
    
The discrimination accusation of TSC by Homa Bay Town MP Peter Kaluma indicated a  punitive behaviour to who are democratically exercising their rights. Dr Nancy Macharia justified herself by alleging that some of the accused teachers had exhibited enough proof to support their absenteeism. She said some teachers claimed they did not receive the invitation letters while some presented a medical report in their mitigation against punishment which led to different determinations against individuals as some interdictions were revoked.
    
She, however, promised to table the appeal of the 47 teachers case for hearing and determination at the Commission's Disciplinary Committee meeting.

Teachers of Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) will have a big smile after the members of Parliament jumped in to make sure that they recieve their new salaries in accordance to their last Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) 

The National Assembly Education Committee on Tuesday held a meeting with both KNUT and Teachers Service Commission (TSC) in what was mutually agreed that revealed that the giant teachers union, KNUT has been losing thousands of members in regard to the CBA situation. 

About three third of KNUT membership was lost since mid 2019. From over 200,000 teachers belonging to the union, the number dropped to less than 50,000 members. 
This was after TSC left about 35,000 KNUT's teachers out of their salary increment and promotion claiming that it was the scheme of services preferred by their union. 

Beatrice Wababu, the communication director at Teachers Service Commission said that the KNUT teachers did not deserve promotion from Job group B5. Only KUPPET teachers and those who did not belong to any unions were promoted in a promotion that started last year leaving about 100,000 teachers out of CBA. 

Education committee led by Chairperson and Busia County woman representative Florence Mutua called the end of hostility between KNUT and TSC and advised them to withdraw court cases adding that the relation should be set at pre-2016 level. 

SIX PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS VS TEACHERS SERVICE COMMISSION. 

Six primary school teachers have won a case against Teachers Service Commission (TSC) in which their promotion was canceled by their employer. The six teachers will proceed to earn salaries equivalent to tutors in college or lecturers. 

The six teachers who had been released from primary school and promoted by TSC as lecturers at the Migori Teachers Training Colleges  upon their degrees graduation, were two years later transferred back to primary school teachers. They were aggressive and they then filed a court cases in 2019 January. 

It was claimed that the college orchestrated a plan to humiliate them in 2018 and they recieved transfer letters to primary schools in less than two years of their promotion. According to the TSC’s transfer policy an employees is required to serve at their new stations for at least five years before they can be transferred.

After hearing their case, the Employment and Labour Relations court through judge Onesmus Makau evidently found that the teachers' rights were violated by cancelation of their rightful promotion by TSC. 

The court found out that despite no decrement in their salaries, reducing their social standing from lecturers to primary teachers was a clear demotion. The termed their situation as discrimination, infringement of their rights to human dignity, fair administrative action and fair labour practice.

In their case, Teachers Service Commission had defended themselves claiming that promotion procedures were ignored by the officer who was in charge of promoting the 6 teachers. TSC argued that the teachers were irregularly transferred from the primary institutions they were teaching on different dates in two thousand and seventeen and eighteen, to lecture Migori TTC without following the outlined procedures. 

TSC claimed that the officer who gave the promotion was fired after the incident for violating the deployment policies and guidelines. According to the commission, they claimed, deployment of post basic qualifications as outlined in the 2006 policy only requires retention of  degrees graduates in primary schools. 

Under TSC policy, acquiring higher education only guarantees higher payments and not deployment to a higher levels or to post-primary institutions. Teachers Service Commission was a ordered to atleast compensate all the teachers 300,000 shillings each for the unfair administrative action that was taken against them. 

The six teachers are Ms Nancy Anyango, Mr Kenneth Ojwang’, Mr Meshack Onindo, Carolyne Adhiambo, Mr Richard Asiago and Mr Nelson Muogo. The teachers successfully accused TSC of failing to disclose in the letters the reasons as to why it demoted them and did not give them an opportunity to be heard.

JAFFREY ACADEMY VS 7 PRIVATE TEACHERS

Teachers in Mombasa County got defeated in a court case against their bosses in a private school. The 7 private teachers had sued Jaffery Academy in Mombasa Labour Court, for cutting their salaries as they sought a salary review and damages awards from the private school.

The labour court led by Judge James Rika ruled out that the teachers should appreciate that they are still employed while they have nothing to render to the learning institution at the moment. The judge noted the arbitrary termination has been applied to many contracts during this Covid-19 period.

According to judge James Rika the school took a reasonable action considering that it has 136 employed workers still in contact with the institution with nothing to render at the moment. He said many institutions globally fired their workers due to closure of schools amid covic19 pandemic.

Justice Rika agreed that it is impossible for the schools to predict when coronavirus pandemic will end, a fact that all the 7 private teachers agreed in the affidavits presented before the court. The teachers claimed it was unfair for the school to review their payments without them having proper consultations.

Further, they sued the school for not including them in their virtual lessons rendering them as nonessential staff, which led to a 65 per cent pay cut. Tuition fees was also reduced by 45 per cent which according to the Head Teacher, it was due to the difficulties faced during this pandemic.

Teachers and over 530,010 Kenyan civil servants, including police officers will from January 2021 take their salaries home with less 7.5 salary cut that will be channelled to their pension savings schemes yet to be created. 

The Public Service Superannuation Scheme shortly known as PSSS is expected to be biggest pension scheme in Kenya as it is estimated that about 28 billion shillings will be directed to the Scheme from all employed workers under the state agencies and Ministries in government.

All new teachers employees and civil servants below the age of forty-five years will be subjected to PSSS membership. Those who exceed forty-five years will only be able to join the scheme if they opt to but through filling in the PSSS forms. 

The 9th September 2012 PSSS Act was assented and was waiting to be effected. Mr Yatani said that the idea is targeting to reducing the pension difficulties by the exchequer as witnessed during this Coronavirus era that has witnessed revenue sources depletion.

For a long time, the government has been blamed for the failure to examine and carrying out mandatory reforms especially regarding this pension scheme that has been pending for 8 years now. But the efforts of this scheme to kick-off has been strongly contested before hence delaying its implementation. 

A 2 per cent monthly salary contribution was set to be schemed in the first year of it's kick out, 5 per cent in the second year and 7.5 per cent on the 3rd year and beyond. This has changed as all servants are expected to channel in 7.5 per cent of their payment, starting from Jan next year. 

The Treasury Ministry is then expected to match the individual scheme payment which is about 6.9 billion shillings to fifteen per cent of every employee's monthly pay. The annual contribution is equivalent to 55.87 billion shillings. 

The government is more determined to keep retired civil servants at comfort as compared to health, water and energy which equals to about KSh111 billion, KSh83.3 billion and KSh72 billion respectively. 

In 2017 the civil servants’ basic salary was increased by sixteen and thirty per cent in a timed contributory pension scheme that was meant to coincide with a public servant's per review costing taxpayers 20 billion shillings in. The pay rise was intended to ease the pain of the pension contribution cut. 

However, a pension liability of 499 billion shillings was encountered in government-commissioned actuarial research in which the government owed civil servants and in which rose high to 990 billion shillings in the 5 years that followed. 

As per the 2009 government-commissioned actuarial study, a 500 billion shillings pension liability m at the time was owed to civil servants who have worked knowing the State would cater to the retirement costs. The liability slightly rose to Sh990 billion in the year 2014.