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The challenges that teachers face.
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This school where I ply my trade! The insider’s insight

Maverick John

Am a teacher. A teacher employed by the Teachers Service Commission, TSC. Every morning (Monday to Friday) I have to wake up early and leave for job. My work entails imparting knowledge to high school learners. In my line of duty, I encounter a myriad of challenges. Each day presents own challenges. But I keep pushing on, hoping tomorrow brings good tidings.

The school where I teach is set up in a remote establishment. The learners are majorly from the immediate surrounding. These learners! Teaching here is like working in a quarry. If you expect any accolades, here, then you are misled; big time!

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The students rarely come to school. They are faced with many responsibilities; if my little research is anything to go by. Some are their families’ bread winners, others are married, others come from disjointed families and so forth.

At school, these learners rarely concentrate. Their levels of discipline are wanting! Their mode of communication is totally abrasive and in their mother tongue. Most are masculine and mature entries, more so the male students. The sweat and their breath is confirmation enough. The looks in their eyes is terrifying. Dare touch the red eyed young men (in the name meting out discipline) and hell would break loose! I have resorted to the ‘teach and go home’ policy.

To them and perhaps their parents, education is about ‘reaching form four and sitting the final high school examination’. Period. Anything else is your own imagination.

The students at this school enjoy outdoor activities than classwork. Controlling and restraining them in school (leave alone class) during sports/ games activities is an uphill task. For Day scholars, they give themselves a French leave until such a time that the activities come to a halt.

They have no subject that one can say they are good at. But their performance in sciences more so Chemistry and Biology is particularly wanting. The worst in them comes out during practicals. They either chew the specimens (disregarding all the stipulated Laboratory rules) or leave all the reagents and apparatus ‘undisturbed’.

When results are announced, their performance is disparaging. Apart from a few, everyone else manages grade E. The parents and community at large stare at you, the teacher, with cursing eyes. They think you are the cause of all their tribulation. They want better results, yet they do so little in achievement of such. The same parents would transfer any kid showing glimpse of good performance to otherwise ‘better’ schools.

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The parents’ fees payment pattern is wanting! Some pay as little as Sh.200. They have no motivation programmes for the teachers like those in the ‘better’ schools. The teachers here have never been sponsored to morale boosting trips.

The road to school is impassable. During the rainy season, you must play the cat and mouse games not to be caught up with the rains while at school. The school is all about the Principal and perhaps the Deputy. In most cases it is the Deputy who must hang around longer. I and my few other colleagues strictly stick to ‘the 8a.m to 4p.m’ policy. The work load is appalling. You have to hop from one class to the next; through the the day. This is thanks to the leaner staffing level at the school. You are lucky if the school manages to hire a teacher or two in your teaching subjects; otherwise, you will have to teach Biology and Chemistry in all forms.

The school Bursar/ Clerk doubles up as the Business studies teacher, the Librarian also teaches Religious Education, the Lab Technician takes up Chemistry classes and so on….

Getting promoted here is an unheard of thing. You stagnate in the same job group till you retire or vanish to greener pastures.  One is the Head of Department in Sciences, Games, Guidance….Class teacher…..Name it. Extra responsibilities that come with absolutely no requisite extra pay.

There is more than meets the eye; happening at the school. But I will not give up. I will continue discharging my duties, diligently. That was my school for you.

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