Review policy to motivate Kenya's teachers

On March 3, 1985, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher finally got her victory when the National Union of Miners (NUM) delegates voted for an orderly return to work the following Monday. This was almost exactly a year after the miners’ strike had started.

This strike pitted Thatcher who used such harsh words as “enemies within”, communists and revolutionaries against the striking workers and Arthur Scargil the union chair with Bully-boy tactics whose aim was to unseat the Tories. It was a necessary victory though not popular as it was a flawed and bitterly contested one.

October 5, 2015 teachers in Kenya return to schools without what took them to the one-month-old strike yet.

“We wended wended wended car stood.” This is a sentence from a composition by a Form Four student in this country. This student and his teacher, who has to go through 147 such compositions, should be our business, I think.

Let’s start with Cabinet Secretary Jacob Thuranira Kaimenyi, my DVC Academic Affairs while at the University of Nairobi and Kenya’s first consultant Periodontist at the Dental Unit. Some think he is the worst Education minister since independence. For one, he is not an educationist and does not understand the aspiration of teachers, students and parents.

He is in his element when issuing warning letters, memos and notices. There has been scrapping of motivational schemes in public schools. Coaching and private tuition has been scrapped and Government is against even buying gifts for well-performing teachers.

Secondly, some teachers feel some subjects’ syllabi are too long and demanding to be covered within the official working hours. Others feel tuition is needed for weak students. Even without motivation, the teachers are willing to work between 6.30am or earlier to 6.30pm or later.

Teachers, parents and learners get satisfaction and motivation from the number of As scored, so who is government protecting?

Talk of all-round students when facilities to pursue the non-academic talents after Form Four are non-existent is total hogwash.

And who inserted the phrase that private schools perform better than public schools in the President’s speech?

It was shocking, how do you even start to compare. One teacher has a class of 200 students and no tuition and the other has 20 students. One is the President’s and Cabinet secretary’s direct business and the other one is not!

On performance contracting, most teachers feel t no single tool can effectively be developed for the exercise. They work in different teaching environments and the entry marks for students in different schools are worlds apart.

They suggest Government should continue using Quality Assurance and Standards officers who be better remunerated to be effective. Their earning is so low that they are intimidated by the well paid principals.

It should be appreciated that there are teachers in urban and others in rural areas.

The urban teacher faces higher standards and cost of living but has opportunity for growth and further education.

He also has the opportunity to earn more from rich urbanites in terms of private tuition. The rural one works in more difficult conditions and with no opportunity for growth.

They are left wondering why the large discrepancy in for example house allowance, where Job group N in Nairobi gets Sh20, 000 while his rural counterpart gets 12,000.

When the late Joseph Kamotho was at the helm of the ministry, those who teach core subjects like Maths, English and Kiswahili earned more than their counterparts teaching subjects such as Agriculture. The argument was that they have more classes; sometimes 28 lessons a week.

This was scrapped later and replaced with academic qualification and job group.

The one area teachers seem to agree with the Government is in the area of improving county schools and harmonisation of selections, though still a bit skewed towards public schools.

A county school like Kibabii High in Bungoma is well endowed both in terms of facilities and personnel and performs better than some national schools, which are just national in name.

With the end of the teachers' strike, the Government should do all it can to improve the education sector and restore pride in the teaching profession.

Policies and directives should be strategically foresighted, as Margaret Thatcher’s were way back in 1981, laying ground in anticipation of the 1984 yearlong strike.

Investment in Education is the sure way of changing society.

Let’s invest in our future.