Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha yesterday termed the teacher’s salary increment demands as ‘most unreasonable’.

 As much as the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will best handle the salary matter, Magoha said, the Government is already spending too much about 25.9 per cent of the total budget on education and already a significant amount on major projects.

 “From my experience as a Minister because I am not responsible for TSC, I can tell you it is the most unreasonable (demand)…” said Magoha. “Let us not pretend and let us not play stupid politics. There is no way and you can take this to the bank. There is no way the government can give teachers 60 per cent, But you see now I am talking as a spectator; that question should be directed to TSC.”

The CS, who was responding to the question after inspecting Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) classrooms in Mombasa, however, said that he is a ‘spectator’ as far as the teachers’ salaries issue is concerned.

 “Teachers are of course entitled to salary increments but in the whole of the continent, there is no Government spending more money on education than the Kenyan one so perhaps what we should be doing is to ensure that we have value for money,” he stated.

 On Wednesday, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) demanded a 60 per cent salary increment, which they said is within the 2021-2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

Knut Secretary General Collins Oyuu said the union has already presented their proposal to TSC requesting for a review of the CBA, having signed a non-monetary contract a year ago.

 Trained teachers

At the same time, the CS insisted that there is no teacher crisis as the country prepares for the Grade Seven transition saying that there will also be school-based training programmes, which will ensure they are well prepared to delve into CBC.  “We have trained our teachers required in January and there is a lot of noise on what will happen to Grade Seven teachers. The reason why Grade Seven teachers have not been upgraded is that they are helping us to normalise and we are normalizing in January,” said Magoha.

Magoha inspected classrooms in Changamwe and Bomu secondary schools, where he blamed corruption for the salary woes teachers are enduring.

Magoha also outlined his achievements in the education docket saying he has been able to tame corruption in the Ministry since he took over the mantle.

He said the biggest of his achievements is the implementation of CBC.