The move, according to a circular dated December 24, 2018, aims at giving parents and students time to travel to their destinations after the Christmas/New Year festivities.
Schools were scheduled to open on January 2, 2019.
“In order to allow time for learners and teachers who may have traveled to various places during the holiday season to return to their institutions, the opening day is rescheduled to 3rd January 2019,” reads the circular in part.
This comes even as the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) vows to paralyse learning in the country by issuing a strike notice a from January 2, 2019.
Issuing the strike notice last week, KNUT secretary general Wilson Sossion also opposed the transfer of 3000 school heads at primary and the secondary level that was done by the Teachers service commission (TSC).
Read: KNUT Opposes Transfer Of 3000 Teachers By TSC, Issues Strike Notice
Sossion said that the teachers will not resume their duties and parents should find other activities for their children to do.
He said that teachers will oppose disagreeable policies being fronted by TSC.
Sossion demanded that the employer end transfer of teachers among other policies that he claims are demoralizing tutors.
Yesterday, KNUT rejected calls by the Labour ministry to suspend the strike notice.
In a letter to Labour Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani Sossion said the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has historically demonstrated blatant disrespect to conciliators appointed by the ministry.
“Last year on March 18, you appointed one Mrs Maneno to conciliate on the same issues before you but TSC outright rubbished the process. We demand immediate stoppage of the massive delocalisation of all 3,094 teachers countrywide as a precondition of any engagement with us,” wrote Sossion.
Last week, Mr Yattani appointed a conciliation committee to be chaired by Charles Maranga in a bid to avert a teachers’ strike, but the strike now seems inevitable with only nine days to the opening dates.
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