KAIKAI'S KICKER: Tribute to school headteachers, walk tall!

On my kicker tonight, my heart goes out to all head teachers across educational institutions in our country. I seek to lift your spirits and urge each one of you to walk tall and keep your heads high.

The Grade 10 transition has in the last few weeks been nothing short of a nightmare for the majority of parents and teachers. To headteachers across the country, count yourselves as some of Kenya’s valued miracle workers. I watched in horror as Education Cabinet Secretary Migos Ogamba addressed you from a raised pedestal threatening fire and brimstone if you don’t admit all the students that turn up at your gates whether they have uniform or not or whether they had school fees or not. I did not hear him add, which he ought to have, that you admit whether they have beds or not, whether they have desks or not and whether you have classrooms or not, just admit.

That is the reason I regard you tonight as the unappreciated miracle workers in our difficult education sector. You became the dumpsite for responsibility dodgers. They evaded bigger questions and indeed their own responsibilities and passed it on to you; the headteachers. Because yours must be the elastic world of possibilities where every political instruction can be converted miraculously to a solution at your level.

So good luck with the inexhaustible places in your schools, dormitories that can accommodate an infinite number of students. Good luck too with your dining halls and the school kitchens. With the countless numbers of students that are officially supposed to be countless.

In the bad old days there used to be something called the carrying capacity. Please reserve that now for theory in your crowded classes and do not, I repeat do not, use your dormitory numbers just in case your illustrations upset your education bosses.

And talking of bosses, political leadership in Kenya must wake up to the reality of the actual responsibility of government and leadership in between elections. As teachers struggle with the school nightmares, politicians are criss-crossing the country talking about two term and others one term. Conveniently neither side talks about school term because this is an area of strict competence.

Our politicians clearly enjoy the end term, not the beginning of a term and the business in between. That is why all their energies currently have shifted to 2027. They look forward to election day like students look forward to closing day; and closing day, election day ought to be for some of the politicians. It ought to be closing day especially for those who have demonstrated low interest or outright cluelessness on the question of education in Kenya.

In a display of utter insensitivity to the anxieties of parents, teachers and students, our politicians have proceeded as if the Grade 10 transition doesn’t really matter. Our screens or media images are flooded with party colors as politicians feed us with the only thing they feel most competent about, election campaigns. And therein lies Kenya’s tragedy.

Our national life has been conditioned to just be about elections. And anything in between is an inconvenience. And it makes for ridiculous tail chasing when elected political leaders use the beginning or middle of the school term to talk about their own terms. And this is why they should in the meantime respect those doing the heavy lifting in this country. In the case of education, that is our school headteachers and principals. Just respect them; don’t shout at them. Don’t threaten them. Don’t. Unless you know better.