Time for Kenya to devolve education is now

Given the rate at which Kenyan teachers go on strike, the country’s entire educational system is in danger of total collapse.

A new strategy needs to be developed to deal with perennial strikes by teachers that are injurious to children and parents in public schools. Kenya simply cannot move forward in socio-economic development under such circumstances.

Time has come for us to devolve education to counties in adherence to the Kenya Constitution 2010. Devolution is a key component of our supreme law, which requires that essential services such as education and health, among others, be taken closer to the people; at the grassroots.

Education accounts for 18 per cent of the national budget, much of which goes to the payment of salaries and allowances to teachers.  Kenya’s public wage bill is already among the highest in the world as a proportion of the country’s national budget and Gross Domestic Product. Counties could be the right structures to handle the divided wage bills of teachers within their areas. The ongoing sporadic strikes by medical staff in some counties may have lessons.

Both Knut and KUPPET may have gone overboard by initially demanding a pay rise of between 250 and 300 per cent, which would have placed the teachers among the top earners within the public and private sectors. Teaching would be ranked much higher than most, if not all, other professions and forms of employment.

Even the non-staggered 50 to 60 per cent increase in remuneration awarded by the Labour Court completely distorts and disfigures the wage structure in the public service. Under the new structure, teachers have been included in the grades used by other public institutions. This has resulted in an increase in remuneration for a sizeable proportion of teachers in Kenya.

Under the current Constitution, it is the Salaries and Remunerations Commission (SRC) that is given the sole mandate to deal with payment values and structures for all public servants. Since its establishment some three or so years ago, the SRC has been making serious efforts to harmonise the remuneration structures and benefits for all public servants. Almost at the very beginning, the constitutional commission faced a major challenge when it attempted to regulate the salaries and allowances of Members of Parliament.  There were even suggestions and threats for its dissolution.

One of the most interesting but often discounted factors by critics of the current National Government in the teachers’ strike saga, is the fact that law courts do not often take into account the national and other overall financial factors that influence public service remuneration during such wage disputes. Courts hardly consult economists and other financial experts when making their decisions.

A decision by a court to increase remuneration for a certain group of public servants may have serious consequences and irreparable negative effects on various sectors of the national economy.  Other public servants may also be lured into demanding big increases in remuneration and benefits.  It is noticeable that even judicial officers have often been seeking increases in remuneration.

Politicisation of the teachers’ strike has completely distorted the whole picture. Rwanda and Ethiopia are currently regarded as benchmark nations in the rates of economic growth within the region, yet their remuneration for teachers and other public servants is lower and more rational than Kenya’s. This is a major and very serious dilemma for this nation:  pay teachers more money and halt most development efforts.

Kenya has about 240,000 teachers of different grades, whose remuneration, as suggested, would cost the national Government an additional Sh117 billion in the current budget alone.  That is in assumption that the other public servants do not demand similar increases. The public wage bill alone would completely destroy Kenya’s efforts at socio-economic development as contained in the Vision 2030 blueprint.

One unanswered question is where Knut and KUPPET take all the money, the Sh100 that each teacher contributes per month as a “Strike Fund.”  This translates to Sh24 million per month and around Sh286 million per year.

The so-called fund does not have a proper management structure and it would be wise for teachers to demand an audit to learn the truth about the mysterious fund. Top union officials are understood to earn massive allowances of around Sh130,000 per day.

Top Knut officials can afford far much more than the highest paid teacher.  This is a matter for serious thought by the teachers and all Kenyans.