BY JAMES WAFULA IN NAIROBI
The Kenya Public Benefits Organization (PBO) National Federation has supported a plan by the government to initiate salary increment and subsequent promotion of up to 50,000 teachers as announced by President William Ruto.
Speaking during a multi-sectoral conference that paid tribute to the noble work performed by teachers on occasion of World Teachers Day marked this week, PBO national chairman Stephen Kipchumba Cheboi said the announcement by president Dr. William Ruto unveiling a plan for phased salary increments and promotions of up to 50,000 was a step in the right direction.
“We want to urge the striking university lecturers to take advantage of this good will to engage their employer with a bid to reach a consensus so students can go back to lecture halls ,” Cheboi said noting that the state had shown all indications of willingness to talk and agree on a compromise.
Cheboi said teachers play a pivotal role in molding young minds to become upright citizens upholding high moral probity and adherence to common civility and the rule of law.
Teachers, he said are really the moral torch whose light has to keep shining for the young learners to consider them as role models worth emulating in everything they do saying the profession should never be only about what someone can get out of it, while of course getting just rewards for their sweat.
“We think that the announcement by President Ruto to allocate more money for teachers is a step in the right direction that stakeholders should embrace and engage the state for a consensus instead of resorting to distress action,” Cheboi said.
Cheboi further rooted for safe driving on highways as the country enters the last quarter of the year saying drivers of school buses should be thoroughly vetted and trained to end the road carnage caused by reckless drivers overlapping with impunity during school trips.
“We reject the idea of using black spots as a way of excusing death on major highways instead of tackling the circumstances leading to the road carnage that is in most cases due to human era,” Cheboi said.
In December last year only two weeks to Christmas former Lugari MP and YK92 chairman Cyrus Jirongo perished in a night road accident as he drove out of a petrol station in Naivasha. During the same period several school buses were involved in fatal road accidents.
