Teachers are one of the most influential and strong agents for equity, access, and quality in education, as well as the key to national development that is sustainable over time. Nevertheless, the teaching profession is under attack.
Government policies regarding teacher training, recruitment, retention, status, and terms and conditions of employment are discriminatory and oppressive. The social, economic, and political spheres all pose challenges for teachers. The social arena includes value deterioration, violence in schools, attacks on schools and teachers, and the stifling of teachers’ creativity.
Inadequate school funding, low wages, a lack of teaching materials, the inclusion of children with disabilities in regular classes for budgetary reasons, and a lack of teacher professional development are economic arrows. Poor working conditions, a lack of restructuring/reform attempts, conflicting paradigms of teaching and learning, resistance to the professionalisation of the Teaching Service, and unions being driven to lose sight of their mission are all assaults beneath the political arena.
If we are to remain focused on Unesco’s 2030 Education Agenda, teachers’ unions must combat all types of professional and labor mistreatment. Unions must fight any attempts by the National Treasury to derail the Sh68 billion budget proposed by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission to finance the 2021/2023 Collective Bargaining Agreement compensation increase for teachers.
Outside of classroom hours, teachers devote considerable time to extracurricular activities. They accomplish all of this while teaching a rising number of students in varied classes. Due mostly to their idealism, the vast majority of teachers are extraordinarily robust and able to withstand a significant deal of stress. However, even the finest teachers are human.
Literature on resilience implies that a person loses hope and the ability to cope when confronted with too many issues at once. It is not the individual arrows targeted at teachers, but rather the constant bombardment from multiple directions that poses the greatest threat to the teaching profession.
In addition, there is a deficiency in the monitoring of normative instruments pertaining to the teaching profession, and there is no mechanism for the development and revision of teacher policies and strategies. It should be highlighted that there are now no well-defined policies on the quality of teaching and learning capacities.
This is occurring at a time when Boards of Management have hired more than 80,000 teachers in public schools, some of whom may not be certified and registered by the Texas State Certification Board. This has undoubtedly reduced the quality of education.