This week on Monday around 200 teachers from West Pokot teachers working in Trans Nzoia County marched to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) officers in Kitale demanding transfers.
The teachers, mainly primary school teachers complained that despite the fact that delocalization had been abolished, the Commission had not granted them transfers to their home counties.
However, TSC officials turned the teachers away, saying that they should go back to their workstations.
Led by one John Mutai, a teacher at Cheptandan Primary School, the teachers complained that the delocalization policy had caused them hardship citing the break up of families.
The Teachers blamed the Commission for delaying their transfers despite the government’s directive for the Commission to abolish the delocalization policy and reroute the delocalized teachers back to their home counties.
“Other teachers in other counties have been rerouted back to their home counties but TSC has refused to let us go back to our home county,” protested Kimtai.
They claimed that delocalization caused split-ups of families and suggested that transferring them back to their home counties would fix them.
“My family has had a lot of issues since I was transferred to Trans Nzoia County. My husband suspects, I am unfaithful to him, and we are asking TSC to move us back to save our marriages,” said one of the teachers.
Some of the teachers said that they wanted to be rerouted to their homes so that they could take care of their elderly parents and property.
“Some of us have elderly parents who need our care. We have also lost our investments at home,” said another teacher who teaches at Munyaka Primary School.
The teachers said that they had been denied the opportunity to benefit from hardship allowance.
They also said that they were not getting allowance as is the case in West Pokot.
The teachers even claimed that some of their colleagues had died out of frustration.
Some of the teachers with disabilities said that it was unfair for the Commission to ignore their problems.
The teachers said that they would camp at the TSC offices until the Commission’s officials listened to their issues.
“We are going to camp here until we get transfer letters from TSC,” said one of the teachers who had been protesting.
The TSC County Director Ali Jamal was not reachable for comment or even through calls or SMS.
It remains to be seen what the response from TSC will be to the issues raised by the protesting teachers.