• Schools remain closed in the country since March 15 to stem out the spread of coronavirus.
• Private schools teachers are the biggest causalities of the shutdown with the institution's suspending their salaries since April.
Image: COURTESY
On a regular day pre-Covid-19, a teacher in Bondo town wakes up at 6am, makes boiled maize and strong tea for her young family and leaves for work at half past the hour.
In a skirt and blouse, Marion Achieng carries to a local private school a heavy handbag that presumably contains books and other paraphernalia used for classwork.
Today, however, Achi - as she is commonly referred to by her neighbours - is dressed casually and is headed out for a different kind of job.
She is one of the many private school and Board of Management teachers who now have to wait till January for their jobs since schools were closed in March to stem the spread of coronavirus.
With no job and piles of bills to pay, the mother of two is also among 560 youths who enrolled for the government's Kazi Mtaani Phase 2 initiative in Bondo.
“This is what I have to do for now to support my people since my husband was laid off from a hotel job in March this year following the outbreak of coronavirus,” Achieng says.
Acting Bondo deputy county commissioner Michael Too revealed that 60 per cent of those who applied to do the manual jobs are female youths from different professional backgrounds.
Achieng, 25, says life has been very difficult since her pay was stopped five months ago.
“Life has been very hard, it’s a struggle to pay rent and put food on the table if there is no income in the family. It's been a challenge to get treatment in hospital since our NHIF is in arrears,” Achieng says.
Her new colleagues David Agot and Brian Otieno, who are also teachers in other schools, agree with Achieng.
Kazi Mtaani, she says, has come as a relief to her as her desperate situation had pushed her to do anything to put food on the table.
“I was ready to do anything to earn a living but thanks for this initiative by the government, I will be able to buy food and pay some bills at least for the next six months as we wait for schools to reopen,” she says.
Otieno is a BOM teacher in one of the top secondary schools in Usenge division.
He discloses that he felt a bit uneasy when he had to jostle for recruitment for the manual jobs together with some of his former students but had to swallow his pride in order to survive the hard times.
“It was a bit awkward during recruitment as some of my students were calling me 'mwalimu' on the line. I hard to put on a face because I know too well pride will not pay my bills," he says.
Agot, who also works in a private school in Ramba, disclosed that his extended family relies on him for support and have suffered since he can no longer support them financially.
He says he had no option but to seek employment from the Kazi Mtaani initiative to keep his big family afloat.
“I can’t choose a job. So long as I can earn a living to keep us going I will do any job,” Agot states.
Agot says that unlike other people who would feel embarrassed doing manual jobs, he is not ashamed.
“I will be cleaning trenches and clearing bushes in estates where students live but I have nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it will be an opportunity to teach them not to choose jobs and to have a positive attitude towards anything they do in life,” Agot said.
Siaya County Private Schools Association chairman Joseph Obonyo on his part sees things differently.
Obonyo said that while he appreciates that the Kazi Mtaani is helping desperate teachers put food on the table, the situation has forced the teachers to lower their dignity and the government could do better to cushion such teachers.
“Teachers employed by private institutions and those under BOM supplement the work of those employed by the government and there should have been a better arrangement to support them since everyone is a taxpayer,” Obonyo said.
Obonyo disclosed the government has remained mum on the request by the association of Shs.7 billion grant to cushion desperate teachers.
“Not only for paying teachers but also other staff as well as statutory deductions like NHIF but there is no response two months down the line. We need to be considered just like artists and the youths have been considered,” the former TSC commissioner said.
He asked private schools to venture into income-generating activities so that they can survive future calamities that threaten to push them out of business.
“It is high time private schools stopped depending on school fees alone. They should venture into agriculture and real estate so that they are not caught up in the future,” Obonyo said.
He also challenged all the schools to learn from the pandemic and invest in ICT programs so that they are able to deliver their services through modern technology.
“For every problem, there is a silver lining, because of this pandemic, we have to learn and rethink our strategies by investing and adopting ICT as a mode of teaching in our schools going forward,” Obonyo said.
In May, President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the National Hygiene Program-Kazi Mtaani Initiative at Sh10 billion to cushion the unemployed youth against effects of the pandemic.
Edited by R.Wamochie