Mbeere North Member of Parliament Geoffrey Ruku has urged the government to honour any Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) signed with teachers.
Speaking during a televised interview with K24 TV on Friday, August 30, 2024, morning, the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) lawmaker argued that education is one of the issues that the country should strive to get right.
Ruku on education system
Ruku stated that the country has to sacrifice in order to have a working education system.
“Any Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the teachers should be honoured because if there is something that we have to get right as a nation, it is the education of our children.
“From basic education to tertiary to the universities, we have to get it right, and we have to sacrifice whatever we can be able to sacrifice for us to be able to have a working education system,” Ruku stated.
Ruku on health sector
The lawmaker went ahead to state that the government has to also get it right in the health sector.
He said the President William Ruto-led administration should make sure that the dispensaries across the country are functional, with nurses and required equipment and medicine.
“Another system for which we also have to get it right is the health sector. We need to see our dispensaries across the nation functioning with nurses, clinical officers, and medicine. Level 4 hospitals should be working, Level 5 the same, all the way to national referrals,” the lawmaker stated.
According to Ruku, education and health sectors are the areas where the poor are most pained in the country.
“The health sector and education are where it hurts most for the very poor in our society. I am saying this because I have seen poor parents becoming extremely desperate because they cannot be able to take their children to school,” Ruku said.
Hon. Geoffrey Ruku: Any Collective Bargaining Agreement between the teachers and the government should be honoured. We have to sacrifice for us to be able to have a working education system.#NewDawn pic.twitter.com/ozh6b9RWO2
— K24 TV (@K24Tv) August 30, 2024
MP Ruku’s remarks come amid the nationwide teachers strike led by the Kenya Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) union, which has paralysed secondary school education.
Teachers’ strike
The strike that kicked off on Monday, August 26, 2024, enters its fifth day today.
The union has vowed to proceed with the nationwide strike despite a court order stopping the same.
Several instances of the striking secondary school teachers roughing up and ejecting teachers they found continuing with learning for the third term have previously been reported.
The union said the government had failed to meet its demands in the Collective Bargaining Agreement signed earlier.
KUPPET has since reached out to the teachers’ employer with a view to resolving the standoff.
In a letter to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) titled “Return to Work Formula,” Kuppet Secretary General Akelo Misori suggested renewed talks to resolve the four-day-old strike instead of the court process.
