MONDAY, 5.00PM
KENYAN teachers on Monday ended their 12-day strike after government agreed to pay the 150% to 200% increases being demanded by the teachers.
The stalemate ended after President Daniel arap Moi on Friday set a 48-hour deadline for negotiators to end Kenya’s first teachers’ strike in 28 years. The government agreed late on Sunday to pay the 150% to 200% increase recommended by a government-appointed committee. The Education Ministry had initially offered between 10% and 28%.
The Kenya National Union of Teachers had asked that the raise be implemented over three years, but settled for a government offer of five years beginning last July 1. Teachers’ salaries now average between $30 and %40 a month.
Not all teachers are happy with the deal, however, and some described it as a defeat. “This is a mockery! After all the fighting, demonstrations and disruption of learning, Knut should not have accepted the five-year implementation period as it is too long,” said Raphael Leshalope, a Knut executive in northern Samburu.
The strike was the latest in a series of incidents embattling Moi’s government. Kenya has been condemned at home and abroad for violent police crackdowns on pro-democracy demonstrations that claimed more than a dozen lives, and more than 60 people have been killed in ethnic clashes linked to upcoming elections in the port city of Mombasa since August.
The International Monetary Fund suspended a $220-million loan to Kenya on July 31 to force it to combat political corruption. The nation’s currency, the shilling, lost up to 20% of its value against the dollar, and prices soared. The government had to rewrite the budget to make up for the loss.