The government is caught between a rock and a hard place. Both horns are pricking the butts pretty hard. The National Treasury is sitting on the horns of a dilemma.
The government and the Teachers Service Commission are torn between hiring more teachers and the contractual and moral duty of paying retired teachers Sh16.08 billion in delayed pension.
The delay had nothing to do with government's refusal to pay. Even with prolonged court cases, the government was buying time. It hoped the economy could improve to absorb the cost of paying retired workers.
The government has finally given in to pension demands by teachers who retired between 1998 and 2003. The teachers retired five years before President Daniel arap Moi left office in 2002.
The retired teachers demanded their dues during the last five years of the Moi regime. The regime did not pay.
Moi enjoyed his generous pension and pampered state-sponsored perks for 20 years, as retired teachers pleaded for their petty pensions.
Retired teachers fought for their dues during the decade of the Mwai Kibaki reign. Retired teachers fought for their petty dues as the late Mwai Kibaki enjoyed his glamorous pension for a decade. Retired teachers weathered the storm of pension denial during the decade of the Jubilee era.
The struggle of retired teachers paid off last week, when the government relented. But the surrender, after 25 years, comes at a cost to the security of education.
Staffing challenges are hurting children. The challenges in primary, junior secondary and senior secondary schools are fundamental to the future of education.
Junior secondary school learners are in their second term in school, but in some cases, there are no teachers to give them direction.
Either because new teachers are yet to be posted to the schools, or other teachers are not sure how to handle the transition. In some schools, only one new teacher has been posted.
Overworked, and underpaid, primary school teachers complement junior secondary staff to ensure the 12 subjects are taught.
The crisis of staffing is felt more in schools that have six teachers, including the headteacher, for all the eight classes. This, though, as trained teachers wait for the TSC to employ them.
New teachers have not been posted to some schools, even though they host junior secondary school classes. Teachers will have to find out how to keep the pupils busy, as they wait for more staff.
The 30,000 teachers employed this year are hardly enough to bridge the staffing gap. More teachers are retiring; others are changing jobs, as others shift to private schools.
The TSC may not take ultimate responsibility for staffing challenges in public schools. It relies on the Treasury for funding to manage staffing in public schools.
The management consists of school staff needs assessment, hiring, disciplining, motivating, promotions, firing and retiring. TSC even has a challenge with replacing retired, or those who have exited due to natural attrition, or those fleeing for better pastures.
The commission does not have money of its own to run the show the best way it should. TSC relies on The Treasury to secure the education of the children. The security of this education is in jeopardy.
The staffing deficit in public schools is at its worst in years. Crises in 12 sampled schools mirror the cries in many schools. At Ojijo Oteko Secondary School (Code 3243), in Homa Bay county, all classes are yet to be taught Kiswahili and History well into the second term. Biology and Chemistry are also struggling with one teacher. The one teacher has been transferred without a replacement.
The demand for more teachers is far much higher than TSC can hire. There are more trained teachers struggling out there, perhaps far more than those in the employ of TSC, even as demand for equitable staffing soars.
Some trained teachers may hit retirement age, or face the final stretch to retirement before TSC employs them. The queue of unemployed but trained teachers is lengthening. Teachers' training colleges are graduating far more teachers than TSC can hire.