Teachers on Sunday evening took to social media platforms to highlight what they termed as ‘errors and lies’ contained in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s speech to the nation.
Several documents depicting salary comparisons between teachers and other civil servants were shared online by different users, who claimed that the figures presented by the President were inaccurate.
Previous media reports on teachers’ salaries also exposed a mismatch between the figures cited by the President on Sunday and those contained in official reports.
For instance, a story published in the Daily Nation on April 24, 2013, showed that the lowest paid teacher who is a P1 teacher in Job Group G earns a minimum of Sh16,000 and not Sh23,692 as stated by President Kenyatta during his speech.
“Teachers are mismanaged across all nations in Africa…when somebody tells the President that a Kenyan P1 teacher is paid Sh23,692 yet they earn Sh16,692 it is misleading,” said KNUT secretary General Wilson Sossion during a phone interview with NTV.
Teachers also posted figures that they claimed were salaries of the Teacher’s Service Commission (TSC) employees that showed that the lowest paid worker, a clerical officer (1), earns Sh32,250.
With regard to President Kenyatta’s effort to compare salaries of Kenyan teachers to their continental counterparts, online users termed comparisons to Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda as unfair.
They argued that salary levels in Kenya, being the economic power house of the region, can not be compared to her neighbours.
Mr Sossion that the union will move to court on Monday morning to sue senior government officials, including Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi, of contempt.
The President on Sunday evening, in a televised address to the nation, ruled out paying teachers higher salaries saying that doing so would raise the public wage bill.