Threats won’t work

• While we sympathise with the poor remuneration of more than 220,000 teachers entrusted with bringing up the next generation of professionals, their tactics for pressing for implementation of their salary awards and allowances have left many exasperated.

The noble profession that is teaching is gradually earning a reputation of misreading the public mood in its quest for higher pay.

While we sympathise with the poor remuneration of more than 220,000 teachers entrusted with bringing up the next generation of professionals, their tactics for pressing for implementation of their salary awards and allowances have left many exasperated.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers argues that its devil-may-care tactics of calling for disruption of school programmes in the run up to national examinations goads the government into capitulation.

Granted, that has worked in the past. In the new dispensation, however, salary determination has a deliberate professional approach meant to ensure that the pay is based on sound economic criteria.

This is a paradigm shift that the union, which has always advocated for the rule of law, should come to terms with even as it plans its disruptive activities.

From a purely economic perspective, workers are paid what the market dictates rather than what they deserve to make ends meet.

Those with highly-sought-after skills, like doctors, take home more while those in overpopulated sectors like teaching get the shorter end of the stick.

This is a reality that the teaching fraternity needs to accept. Looking for alternative means to better their lot through work export and productivity improvement programmes would make the union more relevant in the longer term.