Intern teachers should first have a taste of both worlds before

Before ultimately submitting to the unavoidable fangs of time that only gnawed his brawn but not zeal for teaching, Mathews Abuto had served in almost 20 stations.

The ‘field marshal’ of Kenya Science, as he referred to himself, did not only value his depth in biology but much more — the experiential knowledge of teaching it to all manner of students.

There could be many others but, ask me, it is Mr Abuto who understood the nexus between inter-school teacher mobility and teacher quality.

And in principle, and not circumstances, he traversed the wide gap between modern-day national schools and sub-county schools to give students their due.

There is no publicly available current data or study on inter-school teacher mobility in Kenya.

But from my observations, most teachers today prefer to establish themselves in their initial or second station.

The most common ideology is that teachers are looking for stations to ‘settle’. The reasons for this ‘settlement’ vary but often far from teaching.

The long wait for a TSC job and the cruel treatment of the BoM teacher by some school managers is utterly exhausting.

By the moment they are ‘permanently’ employed, they just want to ‘sit down and relax’.

And most of them relax for far too long, transforming into know-it-all seniors, canteen managers and homeowners in those institutions.

In Sessional Paper No. 1 of 2019, which outlined the policy framework for reforming education, the Ministry of Education admits that there is no clear teacher professional development strategies.

It is often left in the hands of individual teachers of varying socio-economic conditions.

Consequently, the long stay in one station produces teachers with a single story about our education system.

Those lucky to be posted in well-established national and extra-country schools bathe in the abundance of resources and sing the glory of top performers; while their counterparts suffer the shame in underprivileged stations. Others, frustrated, literally mind their own business(es).

Bridging these inequalities, or inequities, is a lifetime goal, but we can start by reducing teacher quality.

A 2011 study by Feng and Sass on the connection between teacher quality and mobility in Florida concluded that efficiently managed teacher mobility increases teacher quality.

The only danger, and which is the obvious case in our system, is the likelihood that sub-county teachers may lose their best to national and extra-county schools. They always do, anyway.

The paid teacher intern programme is, no doubt, a leap towards equalising the financial experiences and addressing the huge shortage.

And it can be made even better by ensuring that, within a year of internship, the teacher has the experience (and privilege) of both the apex and the tail of Kenyan school categories.

They should be posted to at least two completely different stations for some time before they ‘settle.’