A healthy relationship between the employer and the employee is a major ingredient for better outcomes and institutions that lack it experience poor results consistently. Of all the professions in Kenya, it is in the teaching profession that the employer-employee relationship is most wanting and one does not need a magician to tell that. Results in public schools, especially village day schools (which form the majority) show it all.
It is no doubt that teachers hate their employer and another term for Nancy Macharia would be a night mare for all the teachers in Kenya, save for the school administrators. Among the many reasons that have brewed the hatred, highlighted are the major reasons
1. She killed 50-60 % salary increment that was awarded to teachers legally
In the year 2017, the employment and labor relations court awarded Kenyan teachers a pay rise of 50-60% based on the then collective bargaining agreement.
This move was not taken kindly by Nancy Macharia, prompting her to file a petition, which saw justice Githinji nullify the increment and its backdate from 2013.This was done under claims that the honorable court erred. Teachers up to now feel betrayed and passion-free.
2. She Introduced An Ambiguous TPAD Tool To Monitor Teachers
The introduction of TPAD in the year 2017 made teachers more of secretaries than professionals. In as much as the aim was good, filling the document is not only tedious but also deprive teachers of their peanuts yet there is no data bundle allowance in their payslips.
Majority of teachers complain that the portal itself is so slow that it takes months to open it. This makes them more worried about the TPAD and try logging in severally, at the expense of syllabus coverage that they should report in the same document.
Macharia has pegged promotion of teachers on the tool, killing the initial automatic promotions.This has saw most teachers stay in the same lower cadre all the days of their service.
3. Employment Of Graduates As Interns
Today, graduate teachers not only serve as interns but also earn far much lower salaries against heavy lesson loads. They are not sure about being confirmed by TSC or being added 10 free marks at the end of the internship period but still they offer their services willingly and diligently. They claim that their employer has remained silent over the same. Future interns will only take internship if the employer deals humanly with the current interns. Otherwise, they will prefer to work under well paying boards as they await employment.
4. She Withdrew Teachers’ Medical Allowance And Channeled It To Minet
The main thing that teachers hate most is not that erratic child or difficult parent.it is the interference with their pay slips. Once upon a time, teachers were enjoying a medical allowance of between ksh. 1800-ksh. 10,000 depending on their job groups. They would use this, alongside NHIF to provide better medication for their spouses and children.
In the year 2015, this joy ended when the whole medical allowance was directed to Minet as health insurance to teachers, a move that made them poorer and worsely depreciated their lending ability.
Though so much is given to minet, very little is done when it comes to medication of teachers. Most of its clinics lack proper medicine and sometimes teachers wait longer to be served. Teachers still can’t understand why they are paying for two medical schemes.
5. Macharia Is Fighting And Dividing Their Unions
Recently, TSC boss served KNUT a termination notice of the recognition agreement with her, despite KNUT having been in existence for over 50 years.
Late last year, Sossion was deregistered on grounds that he is a nominated MP and therefore should not lead a teachers’ union. This was well calculated since Sossion is confident and would address teachers issues without fear or favour.He was to be replaced indefinitely by Hesbon, someone teachers feel is too coward to address their issues.
It is a feeling of teachers that TSC wants to kill unions so as to oppress them.
Above are just some of the reasons why teachers of Kenya prefer a different CEO among very many other reasons.kindly post some of the reasons in the comment box below so that we write about them.
