There is a fresh crisis looming in the education sector, with teachers, through their union, threatening to boycott this year’s national exams.
The Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) says its members might boycott this year’s exams in marking and supervising over what they term poor pay and delayed payments by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC).
Speaking to NTV on Tuesday, KUPPET chairman Omboko Milemba was very candid about his sentiments, saying that teachers are poorly paid, with some of them earning as little as Ksh30 per script, which is very unfair to them.
Milemba added that this situation is frustrating teachers, especially during this time when the cost of living is rising.
Milemba also claimed that there is a delay in payments, with some teachers who worked in marking last year’s exams still waiting to be paid.
“You can’t have someone mark exams at the end of the year and months later they have not been paid,” he said.
This prompted him to warn that teachers might not take part in this year’s process unless there is a proper agreement on payment.
It now wants to talk with KNEC and agree on how teachers involved in the exams will be handled in the future.
At the same time, Milemba asked about the use of money in the Ministry of Education and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
On the other hand, Education CS Julius Ogamba recently said that there had been a delay in the payment of teachers who had supervised and marked the exams for the 2025 national exams.
The ministry said that the delay was due to budget and cash flow challenges and that it was working with the Treasury to resolve the problem.
This controversy is now affecting major exams such as KCSE, KPSEA, and KJSEA, which need the services of teachers for supervision and marking.
