Why is Kenya National Union of Teachers setting up war between teachers, pupils?

By Moses Kuria

NAIROBI, KENYA: “Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom” – Nelson Mandela

In October next year, sometimes around Mashujaa Day, a group of hitherto unrecognised heroes and heroines numbering several hundred thousand will be unveiled. These are the young Kenyans who will sit for KCSE examinations. I am sure you are wondering what is special with that lot for them to be bestowed with the Mashujaa recognition while we have been having students sit for KCSE every year. The Mashujaa lot that will write the Form Four exams next year will be the first ‘liberated’ KCSE graduates having joined Standard One in 2003 when President Mwai Kibaki’s Narc government implemented the Free Primary School Education.

I recall vividly the criticism Kibaki received on free primary secondary education. “Why introduce free learning when there are no classrooms, no desks, and no teachers? Can’t you Mr President see that some children study under the trees? Are you aware Mr President that many children do not have any food to eat? Of what use will be the free primary education if the children are starving? Why are you assuming that all parts of Kenya are as privileged as Othaya such that the only thing the kids require is free primary education?” Ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

But for the liberated KCSE candidates, they will be so joyously busy engraving the letters K-E-N-Y-A in the permanent rock of history that they will not even remember what the skeptics, cynics and naysayers said. A good number of the students will be sons of daughters of the current teaching fraternity. The only thing that will bother them is why mom-teacher and dad-teacher would want to deny their younger siblings-the liberated generation II- a second stab at history in the form of the free laptops.

If Kibaki had allowed the criticism to blur his vision, many in the liberated generation 1 would not be sitting for KCSE next year. By the same token, the Jubilee Government needs to keep its eyes on the ball and ensure that liberated generation II is not a still birth. President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto should not let the avarice of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) destroy the aspirations of liberated generation II through free laptops.

Kenyans in their 30’s and 40’s who were born into average families, went to public  schools especially in rural areas before joining public universities saw a computer for first time after joining university. If they had learnt how to use the computer in Standard One, Kenya would be miles and miles ahead. Back then, the government would have launched a document in 1990 entitled “Vision 2010: Transforming Kenya into a prosperous middle income economy by the year 2010”. That did not happen so instead we have Vision 2030. By demanding that the Jubilee government abandons the free laptop project so that the salaries of teachers can be tripled, Knut is now asking us to rebrand Vision 2030 with Vision 2050. Sad. Very sad indeed.

I have nothing but profound respect for teachers. It is thanks to my teachers from kindergarten to university that you are reading this column. But wait a minute; the salaries of teachers have more than doubled since 1997 thanks to the now repealed gazette notice Number 534. The truth of the matters is that the Knut leadership is taking advantage of the teachers. The government remits Sh90 million to Knut leaders every month. Each Knut top official earns Sh1.2 million each per month and a weekly ‘operating allowance’ of between Sh150,000 and Sh200,000

In its quest for higher salaries (from the current Sh1.2 million a month) and allowances above the Sh200,000 weekly stipend, the Knut leadership is distorting facts and claiming that the laptops for Liberated Generation II will cost Sh53 billion. That is a white, fat lie. The first year cost is only Sh15 billion and that, I am reliably informed, includes the cost of solar panels and electricity connection to schools that do not have power.

Knut wants the Government to give them the money for children’s laptops and the electricity for primary schools. That is tantamount to stealing from children. There is no moral justification when Knut demands that we deny the poor kids Sh15 billion for the laptops they deserve while at the same time demanding that we spend Sh138 billion to pay teachers additional salaries over the next three years.