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Post by mwalimumkuu on Sept 6, 2011 23:17:48 GMT 3
It is rather baffling that learning has been literally crippled in all public schools in the country. This has in a major way exposed the leadership of of the coutry's lack of seriousness. The national teacher organizations issued a strike notice more than a week ago. It is disheartening to note that no one in government seemed to take them seriously despite the past history with such situations.
It is only a day to the material strike that the PM and the rather rudderless officials in his office and that of the ministry of education called the parties to talks, which as expected collapsed. The teachers have argued rather compellingly that they had already negotiated for the hiring of new teachers and money allocated to that course.
It has been reported that, the money has been reallocated to servicing the MPs and ministers’ salaries. When the PM queued at the KRA offices purportedly to pay his tax arrears, we were told that each Member of Parliament should and will meet their tax obligations. Little did we know that, the tax payer will be called upon to service those very taxes for the honorable members. The questions is, when will this government learn to get its priorities right?
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Post by adongo23456 on Sept 6, 2011 23:29:50 GMT 3
Here is the actual link to the story: www.nation.co.ke/News/Teachers+strike+shuts+down+public+schools++/-/1056/1231686/-/qnhfbr/-/index.htmlIf you bother to read it, you will find that Uhuru Kenyatta, the Finance Minister decided to grab the money allocated to pay teachers and allocate it it to the military. I wonder which war we are fighting. The selfish M.Ps were then offered the bribes of ripping off the Contingency Fund to pay for their taxes and back taxes. Some Kenyans in the civil society movement have now taken the matter to court claiming the Treasury has no mandate to grab tax payer money and use it to clear tax arrears for M.Ps. The problem we have in Kenya is that some people are so obssessed with this or that leader they are unable to comprehend and deal with real issues. When civil society folks took the matter to court we didn't see that much anger and support from Kenyans even here in Jukwaa where I posted that story. Now someone wants to turn this into a story about the PM. Let's get real with serious things like this. |
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Post by Titchaz on Sept 7, 2011 0:18:03 GMT 3
Teachers gather outside the Knut headquarters in Nairobi on September 6, 2011 Knut chairman Wilson Sossion (right) and Secretary General David Okuta addresses teachers at the union headquarters in Nairobi on September 6, 2011. They said the strike would continue until the Government releases money to employ more teachers. A teacher with a placard stating his budget outside Harambee Avenue, Nairobi on September 6, 2011 on day two of the teachers' strike Primary school teachers from Kilindini District march to Likoni on September 6, 2011. They demanded to be addressed by education officials over the government's delay in recruitment of more teachers Teachers march along Jomo Kenyatta avenue in Kisumu during the strike on September 6 2011 Meanwhile....A pupil at King'ong'o primary school, Nyeri tutors her classmates on September 6, 2011 as teachers across the country downed their tools for a second day. |
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Post by Titchaz on Sept 7, 2011 0:27:15 GMT 3
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Post by omin on Sept 7, 2011 1:28:31 GMT 3
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Post by politicalmaniac on Sept 7, 2011 6:25:05 GMT 3
muthamaki
The land grabbing, foul mouthed pot smoking perpetual drunk, born with a silver spoon in his mouth (hata kama siste says NO) can never get anything right.
I hope folks from his neck of the woods see that inspite of trying to 'establish his Gema Bonafides' by using mungiki to kill folks from non-gema tribes, he is an administrative and political disaster.
When is this rheumy eyed charlatan heading for a date with Ocampo?
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Post by merlin on Sept 7, 2011 14:26:53 GMT 3
Blame Game??
It is too easy to shift the blame to the Minister of Finance.
He can propose how money will be allocated though parliament has to give its consent. Who opposed his proposal and when?
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Post by job on Sept 7, 2011 16:07:08 GMT 3
Blame Game??It is too easy to shift the blame to the Minister of Finance. He can propose how money will be allocated though parliament has to give its consent. Who opposed his proposal and when? Agreed. MPs are too busy plotting their perks ( shortcuts for tax arrears) or running hireling errands to even pay attention to the cat and mouse games being played at Treasury. To be fair, Khalwale, Mbadi and one other MP raised concern over this, but Marende let it pass. Mbadi even demanded that the Speaker sanction the Finance Minister (Uhuru) for subverting the constitution - unilaterally ignoring parliamentary input in budget making. The speaker failed to ensure that Parliament performed its duty to check the shenanigans emanating from Treasury. I think the Teachers are right to take this bottom-up approach to tackle this issue. FPE and exploding population demands that more quality teachers are employed, it's just that simple. Denying cash for education and shunting it to DoD for looting represents what has been the hallmark of Uhuru & Kimunya's Treasury - it's nothing new. Brings me to the question of Auditor General. What happened to the newly appointed auditor general - Edward Ouko. I noticed he wasn't sworn in when the rest of appointees were. Has he now been sworn in? |
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Post by adongo23456 on Sept 7, 2011 16:55:47 GMT 3
merlin & job, There is a mess with the so called the Kenyan political class. It seems they can do anything they want including the most outrageous things and get away with it. In this case, Uhuru is three times guilty as sin and really the problem here is we have a Finance Minister singularly dedicated to serving personal interests and those of his friends with absolutely no pretense of regard to the public good. It is a shame of biblical proportions. This is what happened. 1. Sometimes in June, Uhuru came up with a budget. He had ignored the constitutional requirement to submit the budget to the Parliamentary Budget Committee and claimed that requirement begins next year which was total rubbish. Finally Uhuru was forced to submit the budget to the committee, late after the House Speaker gave him a break. The Committee under the new law are allowed to make adjustments as they see fit. 2. After the Budget Committee went through the budget they pretended to be shocked that Uhuru made no allocations to pay new teachers even though the government had agreed with KNUT that that money be allocated in the budget. The Committee then went ahead and made cuts in the bloated military expense budget to cover the teachers pay. The Committee also allocated about Kshs 2 billion for rural electrification taking money from here and there. The Committee also re-allocated some money from the NSIS budget. 3. After the adjustments the revised budget was brought back to parliament for approval. Uhuru then went ballistics insisting the military budget must be restored. He was supported by kina Kimunya and Saitoti. Their motion to restore the bloated military money was defeated. Strangely enough even as they argued about the military budget they did not bother to say what that money was being spent on. Then Saitoti went into some hyper ventilation mode about the NSIS budget saying if it was cut the terrorists will take over the country. They managed to get the NSIS budget restored. 4. After the amended budget was approved in parliament it was given to Uhuru to re-write the estimates and bring them back to parliament to actually authorize expenditure. Uhuru then unilaterally restored the military budget and cut the teachers salary back to zero. He was not finished. Uhuru cut off the Rural Electrification allocation. To cap it all up Uhuru working with Speaker Marende and others then made a deal with M.Ps that the M.Ps will ignore the treachery of cutting off the teachers budget and in exchange they will have their back taxes and future taxes paid by the tax payer. To do that Uhuru slashed the Contingency Funds (for emergencies like drought, famine, floods and natural catastrophe) to zero. Imagine at a time when Kenyans are dying from famine and drought and Kenyans are raising money to feed them, these suckers had the audacity to chop of the entire contingency budget knowing fully well that Kenyans will whine and do nothing. 5. The issue here is one, why is Uhuru so desperate to put billions of money in the military budget? We all know the answer to that question. That is their slash fund. That is campaign money. That is Uhuru's personal interest money and if getting it means our schools will be starved of teachers so be it. That is why Uhuru must take full responsibility for that. Then we have our M.Ps who pretend that they are concerned about teachers and yet they sacrificed their money in exchange for another robbery to pay their taxes. Then we have the two principals who tell teachers their needs will be taken care of then go ahead and make deals to kick the teachers in the face. But the biggest loser of all and the one who bares the most blame is the Kenyan public. They cry and whine milele na milele and yet they allow a handful of miscreants to piss on their country daily. So far only members of the civil society stood up and said no to the tax grab. At least now the teachers have taken action. That is the only way to confront the thieves. The parents according to reports are supporting the teachers. Where is the Kenyan public? And here comes the clown: www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/1231918/-/10g07noz/-/index.html
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Post by toddo on Sept 7, 2011 20:10:27 GMT 3
Uhuru wants to be a president of a country full of illiterate people. Full stop. I will forever be grateful to my primary school teachers who instilled in me lifelong values with which I am conquering the world to date. I have sisters and brothers who are school teachers and this issue really disturbs me. It is outright immoral. If a country cannot prepare its youth through education, how can we justify the guns and ammunitions? I am so looking forward to vote these unfortunate human beings called MPs out!
I remember what Uhuru's dad said at independence:
"We must all work hard, with our hands, to save ourselves from poverty, ignorance, and disease." Independence day speech
"You and I must work together to develop our country, to get education for our children, to have doctors, to build roads, to improve or provide all day-to-day essentials." Independence day speech
I guess he was referring to their own family and not to all Kenyans.
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Post by adongo23456 on Sept 8, 2011 17:02:12 GMT 3
For those who have been arguing that the ICC will mess Uhuru's chances in his State House grand march, look no further. Muthamaki is his own worst enemy as he is emerging to be the worst Finance Minister in the history of the republic. The idea of singularly hijacking money allocated to teachers to hand over to the military was as dumb as it was reckless. And then the M.Ps gave him more rope to hang his ass by taking the Kshs 2 billion Contingency Fund. Now the amount of shit in Uhuru's hands is getting out of control and he is in total dissarray. Good for him. www.nation.co.ke/News/Uhuru+rules+out+hiring+as+teachers+vow+strike+still+on/-/1056/1232258/-/urnxt8z/-/index.html |
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Post by job on Sept 8, 2011 20:07:00 GMT 3
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Sept 8, 2011 23:53:53 GMT 3
Kenyan leadership never ceases to amaze. A whole president, prime minister and cabinet sits down and decides that we are going to throw all children under the bus for the sake of the MPs. And the way they made noise in parliament over this issue, one would think that they have the best interests of the country at hear. Kenyans are in big trouble. www.youtube.com/user/NTVKenya#p/u |
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Post by kamalet on Sept 9, 2011 8:31:05 GMT 3
The problem I have with Kenyan media is that they constantly forget that many people look up to them for information and trust what they read in the papers.
Now about this teacher's strike. Why are the teachers on strike?
First it is important to be clear that the strike is not because of PAY issues. KNUT and the government has no issues on salaries!
The issue is with regard to recruitment of an additional 28,000 teachers. The government insists that it does not have enough money now to employ teachers on permanent and pensionable terms and can only employ the teachers on contract. KNUT insists that unless the teachers to be recruited are employed on permanent terms, then it will stay on the strike.
So where did this story of money (5.5 billion) meant for teachers going to the military. Now this is where I have an issue with the media. The statement has been repeated by Hon. John Mbandi so many times and moved from his earlier attempt to cut the same amount from the NSIS budget which was rejected by parliament and he started the move on the DOD budget. As correctly put in parliament, the house did not re-allocate any money from the Education ministry budget to the DOD budget. The 5.2 billion according to Uhuru was always in the budget presented to the house and was intended for the increased pay for the military previuosly approved. These are the facts!
So why is the rank and file teacher on strike? Surely this is bizarre because the only beef this teacher should have is with his or her workload due to the shortage of teachers and if this is to me made light with the recruitment of additional teachers would really matter to this teacher the terms on which this teacher is employed? Secondly should not the KNUT first agree to the employment of these additional teachers on contract and when they are on board agitate for their confirmation to permanent and pensionable terms?
I view this as a silly stalemate. Kids are not learning. Teachers who are probably desperate for a job and a salary cannot get one because a union is stalling it until they can be employed on P&P terms. A cash strapped government is adamant it will only recruit on contract terms....it is a bad war when no one wins!
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Post by merlin on Sept 9, 2011 14:32:49 GMT 3
merlin & job, There is a mess with the so called the Kenyan political class. It seems they can do anything they want including the most outrageous things and get away with it. In this case, Uhuru is three times guilty as sin and really the problem here is we have a Finance Minister singularly dedicated to serving personal interests and those of his friends with absolutely no pretense of regard to the public good. It is a shame of biblical proportions. This is what happened. 1. Sometimes in June, Uhuru came up with a budget. He had ignored the constitutional requirement to submit the budget to the Parliamentary Budget Committee and claimed that requirement begins next year which was total rubbish. Finally Uhuru was forced to submit the budget to the committee, late after the House Speaker gave him a break. The Committee under the new law are allowed to make adjustments as they see fit. 2. After the Budget Committee went through the budget they pretended to be shocked that Uhuru made no allocations to pay new teachers even though the government had agreed with KNUT that that money be allocated in the budget. The Committee then went ahead and made cuts in the bloated military expense budget to cover the teachers pay. The Committee also allocated about Kshs 2 billion for rural electrification taking money from here and there. The Committee also re-allocated some money from the NSIS budget. 3. After the adjustments the revised budget was brought back to parliament for approval. Uhuru then went ballistics insisting the military budget must be restored. He was supported by kina Kimunya and Saitoti. Their motion to restore the bloated military money was defeated. Strangely enough even as they argued about the military budget they did not bother to say what that money was being spent on. Then Saitoti went into some hyper ventilation mode about the NSIS budget saying if it was cut the terrorists will take over the country. They managed to get the NSIS budget restored. 4. After the amended budget was approved in parliament it was given to Uhuru to re-write the estimates and bring them back to parliament to actually authorize expenditure. Uhuru then unilaterally restored the military budget and cut the teachers salary back to zero. He was not finished. Uhuru cut off the Rural Electrification allocation. To cap it all up Uhuru working with Speaker Marende and others then made a deal with M.Ps that the M.Ps will ignore the treachery of cutting off the teachers budget and in exchange they will have their back taxes and future taxes paid by the tax payer. To do that Uhuru slashed the Contingency Funds (for emergencies like drought, famine, floods and natural catastrophe) to zero. Imagine at a time when Kenyans are dying from famine and drought and Kenyans are raising money to feed them, these suckers had the audacity to chop of the entire contingency budget knowing fully well that Kenyans will whine and do nothing. 5. The issue here is one, why is Uhuru so desperate to put billions of money in the military budget? We all know the answer to that question. That is their slash fund. That is campaign money. That is Uhuru's personal interest money and if getting it means our schools will be starved of teachers so be it. That is why Uhuru must take full responsibility for that. Then we have our M.Ps who pretend that they are concerned about teachers and yet they sacrificed their money in exchange for another robbery to pay their taxes. Then we have the two principals who tell teachers their needs will be taken care of then go ahead and make deals to kick the teachers in the face. But the biggest loser of all and the one who bares the most blame is the Kenyan public. They cry and whine milele na milele and yet they allow a handful of miscreants to piss on their country daily. So far only members of the civil society stood up and said no to the tax grab. At least now the teachers have taken action. That is the only way to confront the thieves. The parents according to reports are supporting the teachers. Where is the Kenyan public? And here comes the clown: www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/1231918/-/10g07noz/-/index.html I agree with you the losers are the citizens of Kenya - and the future generation. However the citizens also carry the blame for the current situation by voting in these MP’s though we should be proud of our teachers on strike who show commitment to fight against the deplorable quality of learning. On your question; “where is the Kenyan public?” The Kenyan public could send a strong message to the MP’s and Government by not only for 80+ percent agreeing with the teachers strike, though organising and participate in supporting strikes in other segments of our society such as; A six hours supporting strike by Matatu operators, downing tools at the port of Mombasa for half a day, a media blackout with only one universal edition from all media houses highlighting the actual situation that led to the teachers strike, a four hours supporting strike by all bank employees, a two minute nationwide stop of all activities? This will bring a shift from protests only by teachers and civil society organisations to a joined effort of teachers, civil society, working and middle class citizens. |
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Post by roughrider on Sept 9, 2011 16:42:42 GMT 3
Speaking more broadly, this is a failure of resource allocation and planning. It speaks volumes of the ineptitude at treasury that even Mwai Kibaki's intervention couldn't pierce.
Everybody knows that Kenya’s population – and therefore her schools and children – are growing roughly along the lines of a sigmoid curve. And we just did (or mismanaged) a census to aid in planning and budgeting. The figures there are indicative. So, how did we NOT anticipate that we would need X new teachers every year?
This episode also marks the inevitable unravelling of Kibaki’s most treasured legacy of ‘free education’. Strangely, Uhuru Kenyatta could be fixing Kibaki for re-appointing Wetangula into Cabinet instead of his preferred flower boy Eugene Wamalwa even after the G7 lobbied heaven and earth for youngish Eugene. The G7 are also grumpy that Kibaki 'allowed' Raila to reorganize his team – so Kenyan teachers and parents must suffer to teach Kibaki a lesson - I hope Kibaki knows the dangers that lurk from the court of an ageing king!
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Sept 9, 2011 18:10:57 GMT 3
Kamale,
If the issue is the misinformation on the 5.2B shillings, I totally agree with you that politics has taken over and the media has refused to clear the air for the mwananchi. You should understand the Mbadis, Karuas and Namwambas would be making such noise, they are some of the MPs who vowed that they cannot and never will they pay taxes. So having conned Kenyans by not paying taxes, they sanitize their images through such myopic propaganda.
Having said that though, the teachers have very solid grounds to be and remain on strike. We all know that since 1997, the government has never really hired teachers to meet their growing demand in schools. Even with the upsurge in enrolments as a result of FPE, teachers were never hired to balance the sheet. Instead, the government has only been active in replacing those who leave the service either through death or in search of other greener pastures. So what we have today is a mob of overworked teachers, underpaid and demoralized. Subsequently, quality has been hugely compromised.
When the government came up with this contract issue, the understanding of KNUT and KUPPET was that, it was a very short-term stop gap measure to ease the burden on teachers, carter for children and create employment for the thousands who have graduated from various institutions as treasury works on reallocating money to hire them permanently. In fact the teachers’ unions were against the contractual terms from the beginning, but they were arm-twisted into accepting it. Then, the government started toying with idea of actually doing away with the contracted teachers all together, thus taking us back to where we were before. It is only after the teacher the strike begun that the government came up with another bizarre proposal to hire more teachers on contractual terms. Who can trust them at this point? In addition, the contract teachers only take home about 5K per month, who can trust such an underpaid lot with the education of their children? Moreover, a contract is just that, a contract; what happens when those contracts expire and the government decides not to renew them? What recourse does the teaching fraternity have? This is the time to sort out this thing once and for all.
On Uhuru, I do not think that he has so far done himself a lot of justice. The politicians who are aggrieved by treasury’s move to tax them have hijacked this thing, and it will serve him better by playing it smarter. Making noise in parliament and press conferences will not help him much. He will need to be more innovative.
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Post by kamalet on Sept 9, 2011 18:29:33 GMT 3
Head teacher
My point is that if the government has offered to employ the teachers and on contract, what is the strike supposed to gain?
There are reasons that the government is against P&P terms for the new teachers and that is the cost in the long term without visibility of incoming revenues.
As for the pittance that the teachers get, I would assume the willing buyer willing seller of teaching services will be in play here. If I am jobless and I have an opportunity for a teaching job, why should I not take it?
....and seen on facebook:
Do you think the teachers strike is justified?
Yes indeed. Very, very justified. I would cheekily suggest the ones proposed to be hired on contract would be better off being housemaids with unmatched tax-free pay, free house, free food, free this and that.
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Post by phil on Sept 9, 2011 18:57:17 GMT 3
@kamale and Others
Uhuru is at these moments due to announce a deal 'he' has agreed with the teachers union reps.
He is busy tweeting and retweeting comments on Team Uhuru, claiming all the credit. It's tasteless and irresponsible to politicize something like this, especially considering his kids do not go to public schools like our kids!
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Post by kamalet on Sept 9, 2011 19:16:38 GMT 3
@kamale and Others Uhuru is at these moments due to announce a deal 'he' has agreed with the teachers union reps. He is busy tweeting and retweeting comments on Team Uhuru, claiming all the credit. It's tasteless and irresponsible to politicize something like this, especially considering his kids do not go to public schools like our kids! Phil How about considering this: merlin & job, There is a mess with the so called the Kenyan political class. It seems they can do anything they want including the most outrageous things and get away with it. In this case, Uhuru is three times guilty as sin and really the problem here is we have a Finance Minister singularly dedicated to serving personal interests and those of his friends with absolutely no pretense of regard to the public good. It is a shame of biblical proportions. So why blame Uhuru when he was being beaten politically as a failure and now if he has a deal why should he not gloat? |
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Sept 9, 2011 20:09:27 GMT 3
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Post by job on Sept 9, 2011 20:25:39 GMT 3
After rubbishing off teacher concerns with claims that "we can't negotiate over money that is not there" where does Uhuru now explain this money coming from? Mercies to our Exchequer under this Uhuru fella!
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Post by akinyi2005 on Sept 9, 2011 20:55:58 GMT 3
Now that everyone seems happy can the stakeholders (no politicians please) seriously begin to address the issue of falling standards? Frankly it's depressing to learn that instances have been reported of standard 8 pupils that can't read a std 2 book or a std 3 pupil who can't name parts of his/her face. Where are the parents when so much is going wrong with our education system?
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Post by adongo23456 on Sept 9, 2011 21:32:53 GMT 3
hehehehehehe. The beauty of taking the fight to the ugly monsters is that it is the only way you get results and it is the only language they understand. Fighting for your rights pays very handsomely and literally in this case. Eti the government has no money. Nonsense. Now let them go and look for the money. If the teachers had folded their hands and started crying and whining and doing nothing the thieving politicians would have gotten away with this treachery. I am very proud of what Kenyan teachers have done. They fought for their rights and won. There is more where that came from. Kenyans have to stop folding their hands in defeat and allowing politicians to defacate on their faces. Fight back and do it all the time and we may just build a great country. Wembe ni ule ule.
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Post by einstein on Sept 10, 2011 0:35:41 GMT 3
Bull's-Eye: Beauty and leadership
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