The Kenyan teachers' strike has been averted, and today classes begin regularly for the last term of the year, which, as is well known, goes by the calendar year in this country.
In fact, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has called off the nationwide agitation scheduled to begin today until the government signals that it has listened to the issues raised by the union.
The KNUT said yesterday that indeed there have been approaches from the institutions with the promise of a meeting to resolve the issues, which are all administrative in nature.
However, the union added that if the issues were not addressed in their entirety, the strike could be called at a later date.
‘In light of the latest developments, we call on our teachers to resume duty from Monday 26 August 2024. We urge our esteemed members to remain steadfast while we resolve the ongoing issues,’ said Knut general secretary Collins Oyuu, specifying that the National Executive Council has put forward five demands to be met, including the conversion of 46 thousand pre-school teachers from precarious to permanent contracts and the recruitment of 20 thousand new teachers, as well as the promotion of another 130 thousand.
Relief for thousands of parents for whom school is not just an economic sacrifice, but the only hope of being able to give their children a future, and in the present also the way to have a guaranteed lunch at little cost, with community collections for the school canteen.