Teacher delocalisation provides nourishment

A teacher during a lesson at Syangwa Primary School in Kitui County. [File, Standard]

If the teachers’ unions, Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) and Kenya Union of post Primary Teachers (Kuppet) get their way, the teachers of Kenya and Kenyans may as well brace for another strike this year.

This is in relation to the delocalisation process began by the employer in early 2018 and which has resulted in head teachers and principals of secondary schools being moved from schools in their home counties or regions to other counties and regions. All this in an attempt to curb corruption in schools, reduce incidences of student indiscipline and bring about a more national outlook in the management of our leaning institutions.

In the second wave, the employer is said to be targeting deputy principals, those who have served longer in the same station and those overdue for promotion in order to ensure a fair transition while continuing the delocalisation program. There are many issues raised by the teachers’ unions, including the fact that the implementation process of delocalisation was rushed, ignored issues of spousal proximity, age and health of some of the affected, factors that have informed previous deployment and transfers by the employer.

Whatever arguments one may have against the process of delocalisation, these should not be the basis for a national strike by teachers. The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has among its mandates the hiring, deployment and transfer of teachers and in their employment agreement, the teachers sign a document agreeing to work in any station and take duties as might be assigned by an agent of the commission.

Officers deployed

Agents of the commission range from one’s immediate senior in the station, to the TSC directors from the sub-county to the headquarters. By virtue of this alone, an employee of TSC can therefore be deployed anywhere, in whichever capacity as long as TSC has jurisdiction or has an arrangement to have its officers deployed in that area even if in a foreign country.

It is arguable that the TSC should have staggered the process, beginning with new promotions and phasing out the locally deployed current institutional leaders as they retire or when they are next due for promotion. This would have taken anywhere between ten to 20 years to effect as a majority of current school heads and deputies are in their mid-40s to just shy of the mandatory retirement age of 60.

To its credit, TSC has ensured by whatever means available, that the first batch of delocalised officers have settled in their new stations and are enjoying some level of peaceful transition, and that other stakeholders in those institutions and the communities around the institutions are coming to appreciate the new way of doing things.

But what the concerned must ask themselves is whether delocalisation in school management has any positive impact in the general provision of service in such a critical sector. It is true that a lot of schools, especially in peri-urban and rural setups, have almost-always had all the teaching staff coming from the same locality.

Prevalent language

This, combined with a support staff from the locality gives the institution a fairly tribal image that affects the learners’ view of life in later years. Hence, a delocalised teaching force would encourage a healthy cross cultural exchange that can be the trigger for a more inclusive and much touted national unity.

A delocalised school leadership also tends to reduce financial and other malpractices. There are schools in this country where serious official business including staff meetings and procurement are transacted in the prevalent language of the area and the secretary re-writes the minutes as he or she interprets them for purposes of records. In such cases, it is not unusual to find a great discrepancy in what is recorded and the actual proceedings. Tenders end up in the hands of relatives or a small cartel and employment opportunities are handed over to cronies and their relatives.

In such a scenario, disciplinary issues involving staff and students are usually dealt with unprofessionally as nobody wishes to rock the communal way of doing things. A case in point is the recent highlighting of pregnancies among thousands of primary going school girls, to the embarrassment of all right minded citizens, yet a keen outsiders’ eye, without the shadow of sociocultural practices to deter him or her, would have acted differently in good time.

Above all, delocalisation will in due course inject fresh thinking and new ways of approaching traditional challenges affecting the internal processes of the school and even the relationship of the school and the community as the new leadership will always be under pressure to find new ways of building new bridges and maintaining existing ones with all stakeholders while, at the same time, remain cognizant of the fact that acceptance or rejection depends on performance, rather than an attachment to the community.

Mr Nyarima is an Educationist based in [email protected]