Why management of primary schools should be devolved to the counties

The tragedy of our days in Kenya today is not that too many of our productive people are immersed in alcoholism or far too many people die from road accidents, diarrhoea, cholera, misdiagnosis from poorly equipped hospitals or the endless incidents of corruption.

Far from it. The real tragedy is that we generally lack any long-term strategies to deal with all these challenges that face us as a people.

Leadership everywhere is falling short and failing us badly, we lack strategic think, we do not plan long enough to forestall the occurrence of tragedy and the education sector has not been spared. 

Here is an example. Come next year — we know that over 200,000 primary school children will miss entry into secondary school, 70,000 will fail to get an opportunity of higher education and many more will fall by the wayside not because of their low achievements but simply because the opportunities for these young stars to pursue their dreams do not exist.

We can also predict that the government will not pay teachers their new salaries as approved by the courts and the teachers union will rant and rave around town, cause a massive gridlock in the public school system and parents and children in private schools will pay the price for those mistakes because they will outperform those in public schools.

But they will be denied places in the national schools because the Ministry of Education will direct so. We also know that four other counties will put up some nondescript rural universities in some remote location and seek for accreditation to offer degree courses.

It’s all a vicious cycle of endless measures, moving from crisis to crisis that has now become our modus operandi. And this madness pervades the entire education system, from early childhood to university. 

In part, these will happen because of the endless bickering among decision makers. But more importantly, they will happen because we have no long-term plans to address them.

We have never had any. If the rationale for having urgent reforms in the educations sector is overwhelming, the path to such reform could hardly be rockier.

Let’s take the management of primary schools for example. In the current impasse between the Cabinet secretary for Education and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), both the union and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) would like the TSC to appoint the school headteachers. 

The basic regulations drafted by the Ministry of Education would wish to shift this role to the ministry.  Both sides have a point but they are points that are inherently flawed.

For starters, part of the problem with many of our schools is the requirement that school heads be practising teachers — an argument that automatically places them on the payroll of the TSC as required by the Constitution. Both the TSC and Knut are wrong to argue that the TSC should be the employer of school heads. In fact, school heads should not teach.

The many functions required in the day-to-day operations of the school make it practically impossible to be an effective class teacher and manage school affairs.

But the ministry is equally wrong to grab this role then go ahead to create a multitude of bureaucratic bodies in the school system that are virtually expected to run schools on a day-to-day basis, making the role of the school heads redundant. 

A major window for reinvigorating school management that exists both in the Constitution and the Education Act is that the national government has the leeway to transfer more of its roles to the county governments without abdicating its responsibilities.

Why would the Cabinet secretary for example want to be hiring and firing school heads from Kinango in Kilifi to Ortum in Turkana? Globally, there are wide-ranging rationales for devolving primary school management.

First, it not only fosters educational demand in the local communities where these schools are situated, but it also ensures that schools provide the social and economic benefits that are more responsive to the priorities and values of those communities.

One of the simplest pieces of evidence for this argument is that people who primarily benefit from education (i.e., children, their parents, and other community members) should have a say in the provision of education.

The current regulations make a good attempt at achieving this objective but falls short in the accountability mechanisms set out in the regulations.

Secondly, giving county governments, and not agents of the national governments such as the County Director of Education, more decision-making authority over primary school management makes them aware of educational problems such as low enrolment, attendance and academic performance, and they begin to realise key disincentives to schooling.

For example, the deterrents to schooling may be inappropriate school calendars, inflexible school hours and irrelevance of curricula, rather than an inadequate supply of learning materials.

By appropriately identifying problems, inefficient use of limited educational resources can be avoided.

It is, however, important to note that in environments where schools have different needs and where localised information plays an important role, empowerment of the local community may be attractive even though gains from local information may be offset by low level of administrative capacity.

Besides devolving school management, the country needs a rethink on the wisdom of a centralised teacher management system as currently undertaken by the TSC.

Other than the benefits that accrue to the noisy teachers union, there is hardly evidence from anywhere else in the world where this model is optimal.

The basic goal of an effective teacher management system anywhere should be to have qualified and motivated teachers assigned where they are most needed, with low levels of turnover and attrition and an incentive system that encourages teachers’ commitment and professionalism.

For parents, the ideal is to have hardworking teachers who provide high quality education to their children.

The country needs to explore the model that works best, but as the management and delivery of education comes under increasing public scrutiny, the question of how best to manage teacher’s needs more attention.

Currently, the national government undertakes teacher training while the TSC hires and manages. But why can’t county governments discharge these supervisory functions and handle issues of appointments, county transfers, promotions, leave, and discipline?

With a long-term vision on devolution, the national government can provide the right guidelines and capacity while county governments could be given administrative responsibility for such functions as paying salaries, providing teachers’ housing and other incentives that best promote the local county’s conditions and challenges in the sector.

Such as process could be phased out over a long period of time that allows for a reasonable period of confidence and systems building and a methodical transition of these functions to avoid the calamities that, say, the health sector has suffered.

Mr Oyugi is the chief executive of Bridge Africa ADC.