Kaimenyi, unions' contests hurting education sector

NAIROBI: Against advice from the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) that new school regulations should not be gazetted pending a review by the Attorney General, the Law Reform Commission and the CIC, Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi last week went ahead and gazetted the regulations.

And predictably, the gazettement has rubbed teachers' unions (Knut and Kuppet) the wrong way, prompting them to threaten a strike when schools open in May. They want Prof Kaimenyi to revoke the regulations. In these regulations, the Cabinet secretary can hire and fire teachers, a duty that was previously carried out by the Teachers Service Commission. While there are many other provisions that are beneficial to the country's academic development, teachers' unions only seem aggrieved by the directive that head teachers account to the Cabinet secretary.

In truth, head teachers have not been accountable to anyone, and the ministry wants to remedy this. Yet this noble move could be lost in the fresh bout of skirmishing with the unions. It is as if Prof Kaimenyi is at war with everyone: from the banning of schools' ranking to the gazettement of new fee structures; to the strikes over teacher allowances; to now, this. And that the unions seem not to see or hear any good from Prof Kaimenyi. That is unfortunate.

It could be that Prof Kaimenyi means well for the country, but then he seems in a hurry to fix the car while the engine is running.

Ever since he was appointed, interest groups have been chipping away at his authority, though grandstanding and chest-thumping, as is the norm with those two unions, has had little success.

As much as the teachers ought to stop using learners as pawns in the contest with the ministry, Prof Kaimenyi ought to listen more and act less.