Let's get hiring of teachers right

Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s most celebrated politicians, once said: “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”

Borrowing from these words, it is evident no nation can achieve progress or improve itself unless there is deliberate effort to grow its resources. Kenya, a great nation with great potential, is therefore not immune to this.

We all agree that Kenya is as blessed with a variety of resources, both natural and human, and is as diverse in climes, weather patterns and topography. One could call it a paradise of sorts but one that is yet to reach its full potential.

Kenyans appear to be a contradiction of sorts. We never seem to follow through on what we have discussed and agreed upon; we seem to have a collective national amnesia when things do not go our way; we are quick to entrench dissenting opinion and dig in to protect our tribal cabbage patch. That notwithstanding, can the planned recruitment of teachers be conducted so smoothly, adhere to the calls for fairness and meritocracy and reflect the face of Kenya? Where am I going with this?

We are all products of a certain teacher or teachers that molded what we have eventually become in life. Indeed, many a Kenyan parent has absconded the responsibility of raising offspring and left them to the wiles and capabilities of our long-suffering teachers.

That is not such a bad thing either. Since many parents have their noses in the grind of the rat race, they have little time for proper counseling of learners. As a result, teachers from all walks of life and various levels of the education ladder (kindergarten to university) have had to shoulder this responsibility.

The members of this noble profession are now in short supply, even as the number of learners has experienced an explosion. The onset of universal free primary and secondary education has further complicated matters. The teacher-to-pupil ratio is pathetic and way below UN-recommended levels. In short, we are shortchanging this future generation if the number of teachers is not increased drastically. And that is why we need to raise the bar ahead of the upcoming recruitment.

My concern, however, is that we seem to have one finger on a self-destruct button. For instance, we have witnessed our elections botched and procurement parameters shifted to line a few individuals’ pockets. Our environment has not escaped the butcher’s knife and there is a furore over restoration of the Mau Forest catchment and bio-system as we continue to hear of the existence of squatters, five years after mass evictions were carried out.

The recent police recruitment has grown a tail with accusations bandied about how the exercise was compromised. Meanwhile, the ogre of insecurity and terrorism continues to growl contentedly and fatten in our midst.

 

Elsewhere, almost every county is grappling with accusations of nepotism, clannism, the now infamous Tender-nomics as procurement rules are cast by the wayside and the financial health of devolved units sacrificed at the altar of grand theft. Not even the envisaged Africa’s showboat - LAPSSET - has been spared. The back-and-forth mudslinging over massive land grabbing by speculators along the project corridor is as worrying as the ramifications for the life of the infrastructure project.

Even our national football team continues to grab defeat from the jaws of hope with each kick of the ball and nothing to show for the youth talent centers promised by the Kibaki administration. President Kenyatta has done the same but we are still asking, where are these nationwide centers? There have been funds allocated to all constituencies every other year for sports development but we really can’t tell where it is going.

Is it enough to sack the technical bench and appoint House committees to conduct forensic audits after failure is recorded? So, if we are saying teachers are the role models and first masons of the building blocks of our future leaders, can the teacher recruitment put to shame all other sectors that are content to pay lip-service and drain the Exchequer? Can we get it right, just this one instance? The State must ensure qualified candidates are accorded equal chance in the recruitment. There is need to rethink the locking out of candidates who graduated recently as this will demoralise persons wishing to become teachers.