A group of Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) delegates have protested against the idea to increase the retirement age from 60 to 65.
A group of the members walked out of a special meeting at the Kasarani Stadium. However, Secretary-General Collins Oyuu insisted that the union shall implement the resolution, which was among the 15 resolutions that had been suggested by their National Executive Council in the past meetings.
The proposal was under the resolution number eleven of allowing NEC to perform minimal constitutional reforms. The last review was done 7 years ago on December 2015. Prior to that, there was other reviews in 2013 and 2010 even though the Constitution demands that it is should be reviewed after every five years to capture emerging issues and to amend articles that are obsolete.
60 years is the same age the TSC (Teachers Service Commission) has set for the retirement of its employees.
“We had come to the special delegates conference, everything went well until the proposal to increase the retirement age from 60 to 65 was introduced, that we have refused. This is because it has been imposed on us and that is why we have walked out in anger,” said a female delegate who requested anonymity.
Another delegate said: “When you have retired, you cease to be a teacher, so if you extend your term of service, whom are u representing? It means you will be going to lead teachers when you are not a teacher and this means TSC will not recognise you.”
However, Oyuu said: “The procedure of a meeting is when you want to oppose something, you bring in a statement and there must be someone to second it. But nobody came to the microphone to second it.”