System should help, not punish, teachers

Plans by the Teachers Service Commission to electronically register all teachers countrywide is timely. The commission says the system will be used to track teacher absenteeism, lateness, age and deployment and help to weed out ghost teachers.

Broadly, the plan is appropriate and long overdue. Education ministry takes the biggest chunk of the national budget and it is only prudent that the money, most of which goes to paying teachers, is spent prudently. Teachers’ outputs have to be clearly checked and documented.

Teachers are at the heart of the 100 per cent transition policy from primary to secondary school and the implementation of the new curriculum being implemented.

They, therefore, need to be monitored closely because they are the principal change agents. Most schools are grappling with acute teacher shortages, some worse hit than others and the system could identify institutions in dire need of new staff, those overstaffed and those with ghost workers. In effect, this will help to balance teachers across schools.

However, the nuanced message that the system would be used to closely follow up teachers to ensure they do their work has a negative ring, especially the bit about a log-in into the system in the morning and evening to record school arrival and departure times.

There are better ways of monitoring teachers’ performance and which necessarily do not depend on check-ins and check-outs.

Teachers’ school attendance and performance is done by headteachers, deputies and heads of departments and is clearly recorded through the recently introduced Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development system.

Monitoring teachers’ performance and work practices is critical but it should be done in a manner that does not appear intrusive.

The focus should be on preparing teachers to implement the Competency-Based Curriculum. Similarly, priority ought to be put in expanding and improving teaching and learning facilities, which in many cases, are in terrible condition.

Teachers work in difficult conditions, chiefly because of heavy workload, including handling large classes and because their unions, which used to represent them judiciously and robustly, are weaker and hobbled by court cases and financial challenges. What they need more is professional support and encouragement, not more supervision.

The current practice everywhere is to automate operations. The new system should be designed to support and improve monitoring and less of a police-mark tool that creates a negative perception.

Teacher supervision and monitoring world over is now geared more towards relationship-building rather than fault-finding.