The Kenya National Civil Society Center has urged the government to address insecurity in North Eastern instead of interdicting teachers.
KNCSC Executive director Suba Churchill said Teachers Service Commission should work with the Ministry of Education and Interior Ministry to grant teachers safety while at work.
He said it was insensitive for TSC to interdict teachers seeking transfers from NE due to threats on their lives.
Churchill said the government was aware of the intermittent acts of terrorism affecting teachers in North Eastern hence should not accuse teachers of desertion of duty.
“Rather than interdict teachers affected by intermittent acts of terrorism, TSC should have liaised with the Ministry of Interior and MoE to provide the affected teachers with security," he said.
"This will help the teachers perform their duties and deliver on their mandate in a safe, enabling and reassuring environment."
Churchill said teachers dd not commit to die by signing a commitment to serve in any part of the country.
He said the state should take appropriate policy and administrative measures to protect the teachers working in volatile parts of the country.
“Like any other Kenyan, the affected teachers are guaranteed the right to security of their person under Article 29 of the Constitution," he said.
To dismiss them simply because they have raised concerns over the environment in which they work, amounts to direct and indirect discrimination by the State."
Two weeks ago, TSC interdicted teachers seeking transfers from North Eastern due to insecurity.
The teachers were interdicted on grounds that they had absconded work, despite a directive from the commission in September to go back to their work stations.
The teachers had held protests at TSC headquarters in Nairobi before the interdiction.
The National Assembly Education Committee chairperson Julius Melly asked the commission to reinstate the affected teachers.
