Key issues President Uhuru failed to capture on teachers' pay row

When President Uhuru Kenyatta addressed the nation on the on-going teachers’ strike, there was no doubt what the message was – that the Government was not going to honour the teachers’ pay award.

Going by the happenings of the last few weeks since the strike started, this was not surprising. All State organs involved – the Teachers Service Commission, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, the Ministry of Education and the Treasury – have all indicated that the Government is not in a position to award teachers the increment, with reasons ranging from inability to pay, to the harmonisation of salaries in public service.

However, there are a few issues that the President did not capture in his speech that are pertinent to the conflict. To begin with, there is the issue of the entry scale for P1 teachers that he put at Sh23,000 a month. This should be the gross payout. Broken down, actual salary is Sh16,000 a month or an average Sh500 a day, while the house allowance is Sh3,000 a month. This means that the money cannot get teachers decent accommodation nor buy them basic commodities.

The President compared the pay to other countries in the continent. What he didn’t say is that some of our neighbours are coming out of long bloody conflicts and are just rebuilding their economies. Furthermore, the standard of living in the countries is not the same, with life in South Africa being expensive while it is relatively cheap in neighbouring countries like Uganda where government taxation is not as high as ours.

He said that general pay in private schools is lower than public schools yet more often than not, private schools perform better than public schools. While this may be true, there are factors other than teachers’ pay that determine performance, and private schools being there for business sometimes engage in malpractices in admissions and retention of students.

He said that barely 1.5 per cent of the population gobbles up more than 50 per cent of Government resources. The truth is that these people work hard in providing essential services that enable the rest of the economy to run. Think about security officers who sometimes put their lives on the line to protect life and property, the medics who work under difficult conditions to ensure people get medical services, the teachers who impart knowledge to all, and so on. When conducting a cost-benefit analysis, it will be seen that the workers sacrifice a lot to render services while they are paid peanuts.

Austerity measures should start from the top, and the SRC should explain why legislators in Kenya earn better than some of the richest countries on the planet.

Then there is the issue of graft whereby billions of shillings are lost annually. The latest episode is at the NYS where close to a billion shillings cannot be accounted for. If money meant for development ends up in the pockets of a few, then there is no justification in claiming that more money should go into development.

Lastly, no meaningful effort is being made to end the impasse through dialogue. Instead, the teachers’ unions and Government are both digging in, entrenching their positions, using threats and intimidation. This is not the best way to end a conflict. The parties to the dispute must respect each other, and come to table to negotiate with open minds, laws or no laws.

In the final analysis, this conflict is about the country, not an opportunity for a few individuals to flex their muscles and mislead the head of state by escalating rather than mitigating the conflict.