Pulling Teachers into Wajir County Government Workforce is a Crime Against the Poor!

By: Jamal Muktar

“You know what? Before we start blaming the National Government, we must first look inwards and excommunicate the demons within……….”Those are the bitter words of a poor man’s son.

Now, let’s come closer home and put this thing called “illiteracy” into perspective:Is education failure in places like Wajir County a result of laxity by the national government, or a case of a non-interventionist approach from people we innocently call sons and daughters of the soil?

 As much as we apportion blame to national authorities, I believe their local level counterparts in the County leadership have serious moral questions to answer, too.

I have listened from a number of people in Wajir, and driven around the county to its deepest and remotest corners.

Seeing children populating the dryland during school days despite the presence of a school just across the road demystifies that old notion that children in pastoral lands don’t attend classes not primarily due to lack of school fees, but because their skilled teachers decided to leave the chalk and join the county government.

There is something big in the long term—schools in the pastoral communities in Wajir will soon end-up serving other purposes apart from learning.

This is an ailment that is geared towards crippling the poor from the power source––and to lock their minds by “poaching” the few teachers sent by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).

Parents in most of the communities defended their children and their reason of staying at home saying that, apart from having school infrastructure nearby they lack teachers to teach their students.

I have heard this narrative not just in a single village. It is everywhere and anywhere around which compels the question: in whose side is Wajir County government?

This communities believe that their political leaders are disengaged from the realities on the ground and therefore can’t absorb the poor man’s bloat of frustration.

This is purely a question of interests vis-a-vis politicians, teachers seeking “greener pastures”, communities and the vulnerable – particularly the poor and their children.

The hierarchical placement of each of these interests shows where exactly the weight lies and how far it will take to change things in favor of the pastoral child.

Let’s unpack this enigma – “folds of smokescreen”.

The County Governor – the “prime politician” wants to appear sufficiently benevolent by hiring all professionals. He, undoubtedly, hinges not on the needs of the wider society, neither the poor, but to the rise of overnight super millionaires. It is a common knowledge that they shall be subjected to a lifetime forensic audit.

He is in it to win goals for his side. It is an open political market, you should know.

The teacher, like any other creature, has his stomach as the benchmark for his decisions. He wants a full pocket. For your information, teachers have created a ‘niche’ for themselves as major village political mobilisers. Get this from me: in those rural places in Wajir, the teacher is everything.

To the rural community, the teacher is a consultant, a mobile library and a trustee on anything public together with local administrative chiefs. Good attributes, but deployed in poisoned grounds, a ground where the County Government’s “eye” in the villages is opening “hope accounts” for their re-election in 2017.

The Sub County “eyes” as they are called are often ‘renegades’ who missed out in the local clan politics, aimed to wither an occupant,and as almost everyone observed, they wash their dirty linen in public to appease the big “Big boss”. For sure, all the attempts are energies in futility – just another ‘placebo’ effect of our season.

The community banks on the politician, the teachers and the rural chiefs for support—both mental and material.

Its vulnerability has, however elevated its risk status. It may complain and even point out all the problems afflicting it, but it is handicapped. It can’t move far. It cries but acts not.

And so, if the society is handicapped, how then should we expect it to curtail the afflictions facing the children? That is where we must come in.

Well, there is this thing people call qualifications and the need to offer “any person” a chance to move to a “higher office” so long as he or she is qualified. Then there is this other aspect that remains at the periphery of this exodus. It touches on the impact moving to “higher offices” brings down to the local community.

Though a lot of people argue that teachers have what it takes to be part of this “economic nomadism”, I still hold the view that this argument is void and suppresses the voices of the primary beneficiaries of the teaching profession—the children of the poor. I agree with people who say devolution has contributed in killing the value of education in the so called “marginalized counties”.

Then we come to what informs County Government leadership. Should public decisions be informed by the urgency to elevate individual’s interests at the expense of public needs? Where is honesty in our preaching about promoting education among the poor pastoralists?

Yes, teachers can serve in other capacities, but we must agree locally that their re-postings into the County Government play a central role in calculating negative social returns to the community. Is an awful opportunity cost. It’s a dreadful deal by this regime.

If the County government won’t function minus teachers, then it should be ready to pay the price for its actions. Let it “endeavor” to hire double the number of teachers it poached and facilitate their stay in those teachers-less schools.

These new teachers should be made to feel that they are the pillars of the people. From the face value of it, the regime will say both primary and secondary education functions aren’t theirs; it’s a national government function. But the reverse analysis of the same intuition is that they continue to frustrate the sector after night fall.

By admitting that our people are poor and need special support, Wajir County Government bureaucracies silently admits its remorseful crime against the poor. It must re-invent its policies in support of the interests of the children and the poor so as to offload this guilt consciousness in them. They should stop burying their head in the sand but address the menace.. The poor mans’ investments into his future progeny is at its deathbed.

The fact remains that Governor Ahmed Abdullahi has failed to meaningfully compensate the biggest loss to the poor families by robbing off the drivers of the poor man’s hope.

The children from poor families ultimately owe his Government an open sincere apology – and this has to be done before his first term ends. It’s morally unacceptable for the regime’s failures to be fermented now, only for it to be serviced by successive regimes.

Notably and at a minimum , the regime houses at least 3 County Executive committee members, 6 Chief Officers and at least 3 Sub County administrators–all from the teaching profession.

A lot more from the teaching professionals serve in other middle and lower level positions within the Wajir County Government workforce.

Is it rational to say Wajir County Government is another TSC reloaded?

The teaching profession of today’s Wajir is making every concerned educationist suffer from a professional jinx – it’s not simple to say any of our qualified graduates around wants to envision a journey between the books and the poor student’s dream. On a minimum level there is a proxy indicator to validate this statement.

In the earnest days of today’s Wajir County Government after the release of the 2013 exam results, Wajir County Government organized a major conference that attracted education stakeholders and education experts around the region in which issues were discussed and resolutions passed.

Barely 3 year down the road, no meaningful follow-up was made after the conference and to this day, no substantial report made available to the public. Mr. Salah Abdi Sheikh an activist from the region argues that there was no point of having the conference in the first place, and spending huge sums of money if a framework for implementation was not going to be in place.

Broadly as the County Governments argue that they have done what is practically possible under the circumstance, including hire of untrained teachers, support to routine assessments, facilitation of stakeholder conferences and employment of experienced fellows by the ministry etc. The quick fixes need to be more coordinated and profoundly concrete.

For instance, there is a lack of autonomy in decision making and consultation with the County education officials who seem all lost in the flagging off of mock exams that are not well administered because the Governors like such populist activity to re brand the regime. The untrained teachers need better orientation and the assessments should be managed better than what happened in 2015/16.

Perhaps this should narrow the path we began to face the realities that our schools are slowly loosing social value. It’s not a secret that in the last 2016 KCPE and KCSE results we did not only witness all the indications that local schools in the county are feeling the pinch of the teachers poaching spree,but a new level of failed leadership that is on the rise.

This is not an insult from me per se. While relasing the KCPE, education CS Mr. Fred Matiang’i took Wajir County as a prime example. In a record of 21 exam malpractices he remarked, “We saw teachers seated in the bush sending answers to students”.

This puts Wajir on the national radar and as such calls for a framework to address the crisis with sobriety, free from our traditional political orientations. We ought to move away from the usual suspicion and the continued Wajir County Government rhetoric of keeping mum and ignoring the constitutionally recognized collaborative relationship with national government institutions on a number of overlapping functions.

Subsequently, the huge number of D’s and E’s coming out of the 2016 KCSE results in Wajir must find a way out – at least to the next destination of life, and move away from the the grim reminders that it’s an state orchestrated politics.

Primarily there is a morale sense of having teachers within the County Government top brass by way of secondment or any other in our labor laws, but there must be a profound balance between hunting for professionals and matters that overlay public interests under County development strategies—in particular those that tend to distract or subvert our local education system.

While we shall be open in doubling down developments in the county, we ought to visualize the next generation’s dilemma. It’s an emerging profanity; it’s a ‘new’ inter-generational conflict; a by-product of Governor Ahmed Abdullahi’s regime.

This is a fact; it’s not a sensational debate any longer when theCounty CEO just affirms “Am a bad manager if all is not right in my Government and in my politics”.

On a broader outlook, the next, future and successive county regimes should for sure consider the negative implications of denting the teaching profession at the local level. The poor man’s trustees have the legal right to go into mainstream county government jobs. No doubt about that.

The sitting county government must regularly be reminded that they shall ultimately be sullied with the guilt out of it.

Bring back our teachers: The highly skilled teachers poached to serve in the county

Mr. Mohamud   Abdi

His school administration style kept boys from the town epicenter in class and had the boys’ craze on check.

Sources say his docket has avoided the debate around the controversy of a bloated public service that residents kept on asking.

Some quarters claim the docket and the public service board officials are known of the popular phrase “the applicants were overqualified’.

Prior to this job, he was the immediate Head teacher of Township primary school.

 Now: CEC, Labour.

Mr. Abdullahi Maalim

He was once a secondary school principal and a popularly penned Chemistry and Mathematics tutor as defined by his former students.

Those who now work with him in the County portfolio say he forms part of the regimes heartbeat for “strategic “performance amid the department power plays.

 Now:Chief Officer, Health.

Jamal Muktar is a Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and communications practitioner.