HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 1522184,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1522184/?format=api",
"text_counter": 190,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Ogola",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I rise to second the Motion as moved by Sen. Montet. This is a Petition to the Senate regarding the discrimination by Teacher Service Commission (TSC) on the payment of hardships and enhanced house allowance to some teachers in Kilifi and Taita Taveta counties. This discrimination may not only be specific to Taita Taveta and Kilifi counties. A number of teachers in this Republic continue to be discriminated in the issue of hardship wherever they are serving. It is the mandate of the Ministry of Public Service and Human Capital Development to designate hardship areas. Madam Temporary Speaker, in my experience as a teacher and in my day-to-day working with teachers as a leader, I would like to tell you that most teachers, if not over 80 per cent of teachers in this republic go through a lot of hardship. Basically, hardship allowance was meant to compensate for the hardship that teachers go through in their areas of work. Secondly, the hardship allowance is supposed to compensate the teachers due to the isolation and the separation from their families. I am a teacher, and I know that most of the teachers in the country, especially the ones that teach in the rural areas, which is over 80 per cent of the areas of the schools in which our teachers teach, are not able to live with their families. Some of those rural areas do not even have houses that teachers can live in dignity. Most of the time they are isolated from their families. Madam Temporary Speaker, this is a profession where, like all other professions, Kenyans join voluntarily, and from their young age, they start their families away in their areas of work, far away from even their spouses. It comes with a lot of sacrifice, resilience, and patience from these young public servants. So, these are some of the reasons why the teachers are given hardship allowance. The other reason why they are given house allowance is also to compensate them for lack of basic amenities, which are beneficial to most of other public servants. You have seen in the report of the Mediation Committee, that in setting out the categories of the hardship areas, there is specification of municipalities. It is only in those few municipality areas, and specifically the cities, where you would find that the teachers, like all other public servants, have access to certain basic amenities. Madam Temporary Speaker, teachers, wherever they are in those hardship areas, lack basic amenities like infrastructure. In most of the rural areas, teachers go to work on boda boda . It is not to say that boda boda is not a good means of transport, but this is a case where teachers use majorly boda boda in areas where there are even no motorable roads, yet these are teachers who are living far off from the schools. In this country, we still have areas where schools have no access roads. So, this calls for teachers to be given hardship allowance. Some of these schools and places where these teachers live and teach do not even have electricity. Madam Temporary Speaker, it is majorly the teaching profession where public servants work away from modernity. I therefore support the fact that the Ministry of Public Service must relook at the discrimination that has been highlighted in Kilifi and Taita Taveta counties. However, it must not only be limited to Kilifi and Taita Taveta counties. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}