Activists Demand Reinstatement Of Teachers Interdicted

Activists Demand Reinstatement Of Teachers Interdicted

Activists Demand Reinstatement Of Teachers Interdicted

On Sunday, the Kenya National Civil Society Centre (KNCSC) increased the  pressure on the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to reinstate the 129  teachers the organization had detained because they had demanded transfers  out of the North Eastern area. Suba Churchill, the executive director of the KNCSC, suggested in a statement  that instead of detaining the teachers, the TSC should work with the Ministries  of Education and Interior to implement situation-specific policies and measures that will ensure security in the North Eastern  region and, as a result, inspire confidence among the teachers.

“They (teachers) need to perform their duties and deliver on their respective  mandates in an atmosphere that is secure, enabling and reassuring,” the lobby  stated in its statement.

Churchill emphasized that the TSC is violating the rights of the teachers, who are Kenyan nationals, and compromising their right to security under Article 29 of the Constitution while criticizing the interdiction as cruel and insensitive.The decision to fire the teachers, in Suba’s opinion, was poorly thought out, especially in light of the fact that both the national government and the TSC are aware of the security risks that the teachers encounter while performing their duties in North Eastern.

“To dismiss them merely because they have raised concern that the environment in which they work undermines their security amounts to direct and indirect discrimination by the State on account of their ethnic, social origin,” he stated.

Churchill emphasized that the commission shouldn’t exploit the teachers by relocating them to supposedly dangerous places and ignoring their welfare.The country has been divided over the teachers’ interdiction, and numerous lawmakers have demanded that the TSC retract the letters it delivered to the victims.

The National Assembly’s Education Committee’s Chair, Julius Melly of Tinderet, has called for the teachers’ reinstatement in the past.On Monday of previous week, teachers protested against TSC’s decision to fire them along Upperhill. However, police fired tear gas at them and chased them away. During the altercation, ten teachers were detained.

The teachers’ refusal to report to the several schools in North Eastern where they  had been posted was viewed by TSC as open defiance, which led to the interdiction.