KNUT says TSC inciting teachers to seek transfer from northeast Kenya as pressure grows

NAIROBI—The teachers employer is inciting teachers to seek transfer from schools in Northern Kenya, the teachers union has said.

Reacting to massive transfer of teachers from Wajir to other parts of the country, officials of the Kenya Union of Teachers (KNUT) Wajir branch said the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) was asking the non-local teachers to apply for transfer to other parts of the country.

”Teachers are not asking for transfer letters. Its the TSC that is transferring the teachers while they are at their stations,” the Secretary-General of the KNUT Wajir branch, Nur Bardad said.

”They incite them through phone calls to collect their transfer letters,” furious Bardad added.

Normally when the TSC receives transfer application from teachers and the same granted, the county director of education and the headteacher of the school are notified of the transfer approval to pave way for clearance.

”Some of the teachers are custodians of school properties like computers and inventories of school text books,” Bardad said.

He said the excuse that the locals were colluding with the attackers was far from the truths.

”We have bosses of security apparatus who are not locals. Are they colluding with the attackers,” he asked.

At the parliament on Thursday, the Majority Leader of the National Assembly Aden Duale tasked the the CEO of the TSC to explain the transfer of the teachers, saying the move was playing to the endgame of the attackers.

”Mr Speaker, one of the cardinal calls of terrorist is to divide nations along ethnic and religious lines and we are falling for that trick,” Duale said.

”When you transfer teachers, you are already falling for the tricks of the terrorist because they want to make sure that any semblance of government does not exist in those regions,” he added.

Speaking at the Nairobi Muslim School in South C on Saturday, veteran teacher and educationist, Fatuma Saman condemned the move to transfer teachers from the region, saying it was disadvantaging the learners.

”There is worse insecurity in Rift Valley but we don’t see the TSC transferring teachers,” she said.

By the end of Wednesday, the commission had issued letters to 76 teachers who were teaching in areas considered to be dangerous in the counties that borders Somalia to the east.