- The teachers have been housed in different schools within Nairobi.
- On Tuesday, marking was disrupted at Mangu High by teachers marking CRE paper 1 after they started to protest over delayed pay and poor working conditions.
Image: ENOS TECHE
Secondary school teachers now want the Kenya National Examinations Council to increase the rates for marking exams.
Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers secretary general Akelo Misori said the teachers have been marking exams in distress.
The union now wants Knec to raise the rates from Sh55 to Sh100 per script.
Misori said the concerns raised are part of the issues facing teachers in other marking centres.
“The teachers have said enough is enough, we will develop unspecified actions in future,” Misori said.
He said the union will soon call for a total boycott of marking KCSE if their demands are not met.
“You cannot wake people at 4 am, they are not prisoners or slaves,” he said.
He decried poor living conditions at the marking centres.
The teachers have been housed in different schools within Nairobi.
However, Knec declined to revise the charges midway.
A statement by Knec chairperson Julius Nyabundi said the initial agreement has to be adhered to.
"Since the issue of the examiner’s marking fee is an individual contract, and agreed to before reporting to a centre, the council found it impossible to find an extra budget to revise the rates midway," Nyabundi said.
At the end of the day, the council allowed teachers who wished to proceed with marking to do so.
While those who wished to exit were allowed to clear.
Korir also decried that the examiners wake up at 4 am and finish marking for the day at 10 pm.
“Teachers are not slaves, neither are they prisoners, Knec has been ignoring all these concerns for the past years. What happened today at Mangu is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
The union wrote to Knec on Tuesday afternoon calling for an urgent meeting to discuss the concerns facing examiners.
"In all recent national examinations, examiners have implemented go-slows and other measures to protest," he said.
On working conditions, Kuppet national vice chairperson Julius Korir said teachers are staying in worrying conditions.
“A teacher has left his or her home only to be accommodated in a dormitory while marking exams,” Korir said.
Korir said some teachers were denied an opportunity to take part in their religious activities.
“Our teachers are eating ugali and sukuma wiki, there is even no meat. They are not allowed to go to church or even mosque,” he said.
He called on the council to increase the transport reimbursement given to teachers.
But some examiners especially those marking languages said they prefer to mark from 4 am to 10 pm.
This, they say allows them to mark more scripts within a shorter time.
“We believe by the weekend we will have finished English papers because of the time schedules, we don’t want to mark them forever,” a teacher who sought anonymity told the Star.
She said if they would only be marking the papers between 8 am to 5 pm then it would take them a long time to finish.
Attempts by Education CS EzekielMachogu at Mangu High to calm down the teachers failed as he was allegedly shouted down.
TSC CEO Nancy Macharia was also among education officials who visited the school to calm the situation.
Teachers had earlier demanded that the current Chief Examiner be removed.