Kenya will pay heavily for mistreating teachers

I’ve said it before — and will say it again. No civilisation, or country, in human history has ever become great without an erudite elite. Ancient cultures — from the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans to Mali and Songhai empires — glittered because of learning, trade, and war. Emphasis learning. It’s not an accident that the city of Timbuktu still conjures up images of great scholars and epic tomes. The Mayans, Aztecs, and the Incas of the Americas were architectural and scientific geniuses. The Zulu Empire, the Kingdom of Buganda, Great Zimbabwe, Abyssinia, and Nubia had great intellectual virility. Modern day behemoths like the United States and China have ridden the classroom — and the university — to greatness. But Kenya destroys intellectuals and teachers.

I mourn the death of the Kenyan classroom, the teacher, and the intellectual. I have several reasons why Kenya won’t amount to a hill of beans unless it restores dignity to the teacher, the thinker, the critic. First, the State — going back almost four decades now — has decided that teachers and thinkers should be treated like dirt. They should be demeaned and despised. I don’t know why the State made such a demonic calculation. The teacher has been undressed in public, and turned into a pathetic beggar. She’s poor, woefully underpaid, overworked, and deeply humiliated. Frankly I don’t know why any Kenyan would want to be a teacher today. I am talking about all teachers — from kindergarten to university.

Recently, when Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta — Kenya’s CEO — announced with great fanfare that he “can’t and won’t pay” teachers, my mouth dropped. To add insult to injury, he said Kenya’s teachers are better paid than their counterparts in crumbling Burundi. Then with a straight face, he defended the Kenyan teacher’s wage of Sh23,000 as sufficient. That’s less than US $8 a day. Let an MP or one of Mr Kenyatta’s aides try living off such a measly amount. They will either steal, or quit their jobs. Such a wage serves several purposes. It impoverishes teachers and turns them into objects of pity, not figures of reverence or learning. How then do you expect them to be great teachers?

I remember when I grew up in the 1970s and the esteem with which a teacher was held. Primary school teachers were the most revered professionals in every hamlet and town. High school teachers were demi-gods. University teachers, if you knew any, were deities. In the village, the headmaster owned the first car. Students, or pupils as they were called, hung on every teacher’s word. We didn’t talk back at teachers, or disregard their instructions. It wasn’t because of corporal punishment, although that was in vogue, but we respected teachers because parents and the community valued them. That teacher-student relationship — of reverence — is key to effective learning. Strip the teacher of her dignity, and the kids spit at her.

Second, it’s not just teachers in primary and high schools that are treated like garbage by the State. The State’s attack on the infrastructure of education is comprehensive. Public high schools — except the few national ones — have been in decay for decades. Public universities are no better than slums. Again, I remember my student days at the University of Nairobi and the respect with which we held our teachers — Hastings Okoth-Ogendo, Micere Mugo, Willy Mutunga, Oki Ooko Ombaka, Shadrack Gutto, and Kivutha Kibwana to name just a few. They were idols and role models to us. I lived in Hall 7 (then University Hall) with only one roommate. We had three square meals a day and so-called “boom.”

On a recent trip, I decided to take a trip down memory lane. I walked to Hall 7 and what I saw resembled a refugee camp — like Daadab. Students were crammed into rooms. Laundry hung everywhere in the open. Every room was a kitchen. Garbage was strewn all over. These offending sights would’ve been unthinkable in my day. We made a ruckus whenever the university would decide to serve one — as opposed to two — eggs for breakfast. Our professors made a living wage, given decent housing, and car loans. They didn’t have to spend all their time chasing after consultancies, or practicing law to make ends meet. Today, they are paid a measly US$500 (Sh51,000) a month. Poverty wages.

Finally, some comparisons. An American law professor makes anywhere from US$100,000 (Sh10.2 million ) to US$400,000 (Sh40.8 million) depending on the school and calibre of scholarship. Kenya can’t pay that much, but it can do better. In addition to poor pay, the State hounded out of the country its most formidable minds — Mazrui, Ngugi, Micere, and scores of others. It turned those who remained into sycophants, or “KANU professors.” Kenya’s incredible promise will die on the vine without a great school system and world-class intellectual elite.