The handing out of teachers’ job letters at State House to MPs is a disgraceful assault on merit, the independence of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and the principles of a professional public service.
Jobs are not political handouts to be dished out by politicians to reward supporters. Teaching jobs must be reserved for qualified applicants, regardless of who they know or the party they back.
Even more disgusting is the reported habit of MPs profiting from desperate, jobless teachers in exchange for slots. Nothing could be more damaging to public trust. A young graduate should not have to buy a job or seek the favour of a politician to be hired by the TSC.
We have seen this hideous manoeuvre before, with senior bureaucrats handing out employment letters at funerals. Such spectacles reduce public employment to political theatre and patronage and demolish any hope of Kenya lifting itself out of the morass of corruption.
The TSC was established precisely to insulate the recruitment and management of teachers from political interference. It must stamp its authority. How can the commission possibly justify a procedure in which politicians have usurped the role of its human resource officers?
This is shameless, illegal, unacceptable and reprehensible. No country can be built through patronage. If Kenya is serious about merit, professionalism and equal opportunity, the TSC must reclaim its mandate and keep politicians out of the hiring process.
Quote of the Day: “A true and worthy ideal frees and uplifts a people; a false ideal imprisons and lowers.” —American civil rights activist, writer and co-founder of the NAACP W E B Du Bois died on August 27, 1963
