Union faults plan to cut ECDE tutors pay

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has been cautioned against making the Early Childhood Education teaching unattractive by interfering with teachers’ pay.

The Secretary General of Kenya Union of Pre-Primary Education Teachers Samuel Opiyo warned that the plan to reduce salaries of ECDE teachers will cause many to quit teaching.

“This will eventually kill the profession and jeopardise the foundation of basic education of children,” Opiyo said when he addressed Laikipia County ECDE teachers in Nyahururu at the weekend.

He said the union is moving to court to block SRC from implementing the proposed salary structure which is set to be effective from the end of this month.

The secretary general said the teachers had made a lot of gains in the fight for their welfare “until SRC came up with the outrageous proposal to slash their salaries”.

Opiyo (pictured) agreed to engage the Laikipia County government on complaints by the area ECD teachers who said they could not access their payslips since they were given letters of employment.

They said the County which is the ECD teachers’ employer was yet to give them personal identification numbers (PIN) to enable them access their payslips. Union county branch chairman

John Kariuki said it is by looking at the payslips that the teachers can know why  their money was deducted.

“Last month the teachers were deducted Sh1,000 but they don’t know why the money was deducted if they cannot access the payslips,” Kariuki said during the meeting held at the AIC church hall in Nyahururu town.

Opiyo threatened to go back to court to file contempt of court proceedings after Kariuki complained that five teachers were yet to receive their letters of employment from the County government as directed by court when the union won an employment case it had filed against the devolved unit in 2016.