Transfers a means to streamline schools

The Kenya National Union of Teachers has issued a strike notice to protest the massive transfer of headteachers across the country.

That is hardly surprising. However, the union misses the point. Transfer is a regular administrative tool and has a purpose. Part of the reason is to streamline school management. Poor governance is a serious problem in schools and transfers are one way of dealing with it.

However, it must be acknowledged that the problem has festered because of inaction by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), which has for long kept headteachers in some schools and, in turn, those tutors became institutions in themselves.

The union’s stand is that mass redeployment of teachers is disruptive. There is some merit in this, especially in cases involving those with peculiar challenges such as ill-health and family challenges. That is the reason why transfers always have to be done with sensitivity.

However, any public worker can be deployed to serve anywhere in the country. This is particularly applicable to teachers, as some individuals tend to prefer working within their localities but become so lethargic that they hardly do anything. Although it is the government that promoted the practice of deploying teachers to their localities, the whole thing was messed up as some thought working at home meant taking liberties with their work.

The debate on teacher deployment brings to the fore a bigger question, namely, the quality and competence of those appointed to headship positions, their term at any station and appraisal mechanism. We are coming from a history where many headteachers paid their way into those positions.

They owed loyalty to their benefactors and not the students, parents or the local community. The net result was poor management. This practice has to come to an end.

In some cases, teachers have been appointed to management positions based on technical competence and good performance in the classroom, yet that in itself is not a qualifier for effective leadership. Top classroom teachers are not necessarily good managers and some fail when given tasks beyond their abilities.

The TSC should apply the deployment policy faithfully but diligently and humanely. A headteacher’s tenure at any given station has to be properly defined to prevent cases where an individual heads a school for 20 years without change.

Relocation is a painful exercise and must be handled with care. That notwithstanding, teachers ought to be routinely transferred to breathe new life into schools and dismantle cartels.