Teachers in Kenya in fresh strike threat over pay rise

Teachers in Kenya are headed for a showdown with the government over salary increases as schools reopened on Monday for the crucial third term.

Kenya National Union of Teachers chairman, Mudzo Nzili warned that teachers will not report back to work for the third term if the government fails to effect their pay rise in full.
But the government is adamant that it does not have money to pay them.
The altercation is the latest to plague the education sector and comes a few weeks after Kenya’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of the teachers who had been granted a pay hike by a lower court.
Industrial court judge Nduma Nderi had in June awarded teachers pay rise of between 50 to 60 per cent and called on the salary hike to be backdated to June 2013.
The bitterly contested pay increase for teachers goes back to 1997 and has seen the battle taken to the streets forcing schools to shut down temporarily numerous times.
The vocal 280,000 teachers union maintains that the employer has been inconsiderate despite concerns of a ballooning wage bill.
The government has in the mean time warned teachers to report to work and said it was yet to receive a strike notice.