Committee member Wilber Ottichilo (Emuhaya MP) added that the committee would refer the matter to Parliament if the government again brushed off the next meeting scheduled for September 20.
He expressed concern over the issue saying the government should even tap into the Contingency Fund to get the required monies.
“Education is the foundation of a country and if this country cannot take education seriously then I don’t know what else we can take seriously,” he argued.
He also accused the government of misplacing its priorities noting that Permanent Secretaries had received a salary raise yet teachers’ pay concerns remained largely ignored.
“In fact, the government has increased the PSs salary by a very large margin. These are all indicators that this government is not serious and we are very concerned as a committee,” he said.
Ottichilo added that the government had been forewarned about the strike when Parliament was passing the 2012/2013 Budget.
“We told them that unless they address the teachers’ pay increment, the strike would come but the Finance Minister did not listen; the Minister for Public Service did not listen. In fact he went ahead and increased the salaries of public servants but not teachers,” he noted.
“This is because students will not be ready for the exams and teachers will not be there to invigilate the exams and mark the papers,” said Milemba.
Committee member David Njuguna (Lari MP), on his part, urged the president and prime minister to resolve the issue saying their silence was creating a bad impression.
“I want to remind them that this is the longest strike in the history of this country,” he noted.
KUPPET further reiterated calls to the Kenya National Examination Council to postpone the forthcoming national exams owing to the ongoing teachers’ strike.
“This is because students will not be ready for the exams and teachers will not be there to invigilate the exams and mark the papers,” said Milemba.
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