Kuppet holds its ADC in Kitui lists tough demands for members
The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) holds its Annual Delegates Conference (ADC) in Kitui today 14/12/2019 which is the second and last day.
All elected Kuppet branch officials and National trustees converged at Kenyatta university, Kitui campus, since yesterday where pre-conference, committee meetings and analysis of the union progress 21 years since it was registered occured.
Today the conference is expected to culminate by setting the agenda for year 2020 and union declarations.
Kuppet enjoys huge membership following recent activities in Knut which was the giant teachers union but had its membership shrunk due to leadership wrangles.
Kuppet has listed a number of issues it seeks to address, poor living conditions and low pay for national examinations officials, Full roll-out of the existing Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and beginning of talks for the next phase of salary increments of up to 70 per cent will also form part of the high level meeting that brings together 1,000 delegates.
It also emerged that conditions to the looming transfers of head teachers and principals recently announced by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will also be laid bare today.
Kuppet Secretary General Akelo Misori and National Chairman Omboko Milemba said the meeting will call for an overhaul on how national examinations are administered with a major focus on the welfare of the teachers.“Over the years we have talked about the plight of teachers during administration and marking of the national examinations.“It is a high time we revisited how best this can be done because it is treated casually by the government,” Misori said.
Union officials said the teachers continue to get low pay and are subjected to inhumane living conditions that do not befit the national exercise they are engaged in.“They sleep in funny dormitories, some queue to shower and the toilets are pathetic. These conditions have hurt many teachers,” Misori said.
“The same teachers spent a whole month getting examinations from the containers during wee hours of the week.”Kuppet officials said due to lack of beds, examiners had been forced to sleep on the floor while others were sharing beds.He said despite Knec’s commendable efforts to guard the examinations at the school level, it should be compelled to broaden the reforms to cover the entire scope of exam management.
Teachers who mark English papers are paid between Sh60 and Sh75 per script while those who mark Kiswahili papers get between Sh65 and Sh70.
Mathematics and Biology scripts are paid at a rate of Sh55 to Sh58 while Physics and Chemistry papers range between Sh52 and Sh55.History papers are paid at a rate of Sh56 while Geography scripts are rated at Sh58 per script. Business Studies and Agriculture are the least rated at Sh46 per script.
