Subject head teachers to vetting, performance contracts

Alexander Chagema outstanding columist wins pulitzer

“If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell” - Mathew 5:30

Based on this biblical exhortation, it would be better, in my view, to salvage the teaching profession by cutting off the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), for it is the member that could easily drive teaching into abyss. Yes, by hiding behind TSC, which has not demonstrated it is administratively superior to previous arrangements under the direct control of the ministry; head teachers are refusing to be subjected to controls. There is nothing special TSC does that a department within the Ministry of Education cannot do. As Members of Parliament scheme on how to suffocate the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, they would be doing this country a favour by including the TSC. To an extent, it will aid the government in cutting down on the wage bill.

Better still, if the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) was to be reconstituted, it would auger well for all. I get migraines from listening to Kuppet and Knut officials every time they go thumping their chests, demanding this and that, threatening everybody and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They have become intolerant and more of hecklers. Unionism and heckling are diametrically opposed, yet the latter is all we get treated to once too often. Robert Frost opined that “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

One moment Knut and Kuppet are ranting at each other, next at the TSC over some obscure issues and before you know it, they are hurling invectives at the Cabinet Secretaries for Education and Labour, simply because they do not massage their bloated egos. I am of the conviction that Knut as presently constituted is a liability to teachers and by the time the latter become wise, some officials will probably be contesting parliamentary seats in 2017; and what better way than shout themselves hoarse now, even if it is over inanities?

Most head teachers are opinionated, so full of themselves that they cannot draw a clear line between parents and the students they teach; they simply lump them together disdainfully. They are always too quick to yell about ‘consultation’ when they don’t know the first thing about consulting. In most schools, handpicked board of governors impose whatever levies they decide without consulting the stakeholders. This condescending attitude of school boards is probably what led Mark Twain to write; in the first place God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

One simply has to take a look at the fee structures that come up every term to appreciate the import of this. Many schools are run like personal kingdoms where the head teacher sneezes and everybody stands at attention. Like other managers of institutions who handle public cash, school heads must be accountable. This is premised on a simple fact that where there is money, corruption is attendant. We must fight rampant corruption and oppression in public and in schools.

One of the surest ways of cutting head teachers down to size is to pass legislation requiring them to undergo vetting. They must also sign performance contracts. That will deflate their inflated egos, making it hard to continually hide behind the threat of strikes, holding the country to ransom every time the government doesn’t pander up to their whims. I have had occasion to study many school principals and I can aver, without doubt that they live beyond their means. To the ordinary teacher, also bearing the brunt of overbearing principals, I say kudos; you are the single most important member of society, what with the modern day parents abdicating their responsibilities to you?