Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General Honourable, Wilson Sossion, has said that learners are safer at school than at home.
The KNUT Sec-Gen was speaking during a press release at the KNUT headquarters on 22nd September 2020. He urged the media to be the champion of human rights in the country noting that KNUT is committed to ensuring that the gender rule is adhered to in all of its branches.
The union of teachers now says students and pupils will be safer in schools than at home. This is according to KNUT secretary general Wilson Sossion. This comes a day after the Teachers Service Commission directed all teachers to report to schools by next week on Monday 28th September 2020.
However, he says the teachers are required to be keen in ensuring that both boys and girls in schools are treated equally upon a school's resumption. He emphasized that there are no negotiations or debates about that matter since the union has committed itself as Kenya's representatives.
He claimed that there will be a lot of work to do in school in terms of preparations. "One of the key preparations we are urging teachers to do is to begin developing a checklist of mapping out all the learners and identifying some of the challenges they might have had at home," Sossion said.
Sossion adding that Kenyan teachers have the best skills, instruments, and capacity to know what has happened to every child and to develop the necessary psychosocial support to the affected learners.
Sossion called all the pregnant school girls to report back to school promising them a warm welcome and maximum support till delivery even if it means giving them medical attention.
He observed that such pregnant school girls must be provided with nutritional support as well as medical care. He added that such girls will be linked to the medical facilities together with COVID-19 support.
Teachers to ensure that boys and girls, whether pregnant or not, will report back to school in spite of the challenges and situations they may have faced during this Coronavirus pandemic.
The Executive Director of Gender Violence Recovery Centre, Alberta Wambua, advised as the kids are used to 2-month holidays at most, 7 months holiday could be stressful for homeschooling.
Janet (Gender Desk) announced that they have sensitized other education stakeholders such as the Teachers Service Commission and other non-governmental organizations on gender-based violence.
Her sentiments were echoed by Alice Tuwei of KNUT who claimed that they have established centres where victims of gender-based violence in all schools can report to.
Tuwei added that the union is lobbying against gender-based violence in the nation in different ways including training the participants.
