Go back to class, you may go back home in January

News that teachers strike has been suspended for 90 days by the Industrial Court, pending a discussion by arbitrary committee on the way forward explains why Kenyan teachers have been on the streets since President Kenyatta was a toddler.

There have been discussions, threats and false promises yet leaders have insisted on these crude tools in restoring sanity in education sector. This pattern has been regular- almost a normalised abnormality.

Our leadership is obsessed by management crisis. Critical sectors like education, health and security will never be stable if leadership insists on quick fixes to long perennial problems.

Teachers may go back to school. The 2015 national examinations may eventually run smoothly but will there be something serious going on at the negotiation table? Employment and Labour Relations Court Nelson Abuogha’s Friday ruling is truly a reprieve for the students- may be just the 2015 candidates alone. 

Some 90 days from now means that teachers may as well down their tools come January. Yet as a forgetful nation, our leadership will fall into slumber and shout “Eureka.”

In January, learning will be paralysed. That may be the next time Kenyans will question the nature and quality of negotiations this committee will have discussed. That is called quick-fix syndrome.

After all, the judge has clearly said that upon the expiry of the 90 day period, both sides are open to go back to their constitutional right (read teachers can go back to strike and TSC continue with threats) if the dispute is not resolved.

There has been a lot of figures thrown around either intentionally or unintentionally – don’t excuse the former. But that is not where the solution to this perennial and irritable problem lies. So, don’t clap for the masters of mathematical distortions.

Quick fact here: Since 1963, over half of Kenyan population has stayed at home because of strike. That means that most of these teachers on strike now were also affected by strike while they were students. Threats and calls of philanthropy may not soften their desire for a decent pay.

Let us do simple mathematics- pardon me if it is not simple. I do not know to what extend strikes affected your mastery of numbers. Let us do it any way.

Since independence, teachers have resorted to industrial action 12 times.  The last nine strikes have occurred within the past 18 years. To spare you from the agony of numbers, any Kenyan who has attended public school for the last two decades has been hit by the teachers strike.

Could it be the reason why we cannot generate long term solutions? I would rather that this strike be the longest but the last than this series of short term solutions.