Friday 25 September 2015

WHY TEACHERS NEVER WANTED US TO BE TEACHERS.




“Having a contrary opinion to that of a teacher was treason or something close to that not even a doctor could have a contrary opinion, what a teacher said was law and it was adopted unanimously.”

When growing up most of my schoolmates apart from me and a few other renegade elements who were sons and daughters of teachers wanted anything to do with the teaching profession considering its nature. Teachers used to go home with a library of books in the name of marking homework which they had given the previous day .Straining their eyes reading poor hand writings and sentences that don’t make sense in the name of marking. Their clothes were always stained with chalk plus they had a persistent cough that only ceased when schools were on recess due to constantly inhaling chalks. Most of them arrived at home so tired after a very hectic day at school dealing with all sorts of children from all sorts of background with all sorts of issues. Their arrival home was not the end of their working hours as parents call after banking hours to inquire about the progress of their children in school since the teacher is the one who could give a clear picture of the academic and moral situation.

During lessons teachers were always inspiring us to work hard so as not to be teachers like them, reason being they wanted us to be the ‘who is who’ in the professional world so as to have improved standards of living. I remember  They always encouraged us to be doctors and nurses so that we could treat them when they fall ill, pilots so that we could make them board a plane for even a minute since they have never boarded planes, judges and lawyers so that we could not sort out their legal issues, journalists so as to write and report about their working conditions and terms of service more so when they strike and Ministers (Cabinet Secretaries) more so for education so that we could improve their living standards and Members of parliament so that we could air their grievances on their behalf. I vividly remember my lower primary teacher retired Mrs. Gitonga telling us that teaching involved a huge workload the size of an elephant accompanied by remuneration the size of a rat “Kazi kama ndovu pesa kama panya”.She kept remind us of this statement so that we would work harder so as not to go through the tribulations she went through.
Teachers demonstrating during a strike

Teachers were the most respected people of our time as they were considered the brains of the society, nobody could have a parallel opinion contrary to that of a teacher as a teacher was always right and whatever they said was law. A teacher’s opinion was sought in any matter that had impact on the society from giving political direction for the societal set up to guiding career choices, teachers were the mentors of our time .Most of my schoolmates knew teachers were the highest paid government officers since the only homesteads that had lamps were either belonging to teachers or a provincial administrator in this case a sub chief other homesteads had tin lamps. A teacher was respected whenever a teacher passes somewhere you stop whatever you are doing and stand still to greet him or her wait for him or her to be out of sight for you to go back to what you were doing initially.Who would not want to be a teacher in such an environment.

Growing up as a son or daughter of a teacher was the most challenging lifestyle as everyone expected you to be on the right, you were supposed to be the holier than though character among your peers all positive examples were supposed to be drawn from you. You were expected to always be at the top end of the merit list, if your name is not called amongst the top ten,almost forgot top three best performing students then doubts will arise on your parentage people will often ask “is that really the son  or daughter of  ‘Mr. K’oluoch’ (let me just use his name because I still remember the Queen’s English he used to speak as if he was born, breed and educated in the United Kingdom) of is he just a nephew or niece.” When the child of a non-teacher performed better than the child of a teacher that would be the trending topic for the whole term more so if it was in the second term which had fourteen week. Everyone expected a son or a daughter to be the genius as you were living in the same house with knowledge, sleeping with knowledge, eating with knowledge and waking with knowledge thus you were definitely supposed to be knowledgeable and have answers to all questions. Personally have never had the slightest dream or ambition of being a teacher the feeling is mutual amongst my siblings who are doing courses in medicine alongside the fellow sons and daughters of teachers we grew up with we had our reasons but our parents also never wanted us to be teachers, they wanted us to be something more than a teacher. 

Teaching is a demanding profession imagine an early childhood education teacher who struggles with a child who does not know how to even hold ‘catch’ a pen, they are supposed to teach that child how to hold the pen and scribble some wordings in the name of writing a name something that is not learnt overnight this can be manifested by a doctors handwriting when issuing a prescription. Teachers are also expected to be a parents at school as he is in charge of the general discipline of children as they spend more time with a child than the parent take for instance a child reports at school at 8am and leaves at 4pm that is exactly 8 hours a day if it is a day school and if it is a boarding school teachers spend nine out of the twelve months with children with no parental allowance they do so since they have the hearts of a parent and they would not like their children to be treated.

Taking blame is something many of us don’t like but to teachers this is an occupational hazard as they are often blamed for poor performance of the children. Parents expect their children to perform well failure to which teachers are the problem, their children aren’t thus teachers are expected to be magicians; transform poor performing students into academic competitors not participants .Cases of teachers being beaten by parents are a common occurrence more so when an academic institution performs below the expectations of the public yet teachers are not given risk allowance.


Friday 18 September 2015

MOI UNIVERSITY STUDENT ON THE VERGE OF OPENING A CONSULTANCY



Evance Owino popularly known as ‘Evano’ a third year Moi University student taking communications and public relations is on the verge of opening a public relations consultancy next month. “It has taken me close to 14 months to conceptualise and actualise this idea of setting up a consultancy,” said Evans yesterday when he officially launched the consultancy’s website www.corporateanchorpr.com which will act as an interactive forum between the client and the consultancy. “Having carried out market research in Nairobi and Kisumu with the help of my lecturer Dr Lang’at, I was able to obtain information on the needs of clients thus being able to customise my services to fit their needs” The consultancy aims at providing specialised services such as litigation PR, Crisis Pr, Corporate PR, Celebrity PR amongst other specialised services as requested by the client. Corporate Anchor Pr will blend in what local PR consultancies do and what International consultancies do so as to be able to provide satisfactory services to clients .In a brief message sent to his classmates Evans thanked all who supported him and continue to support him in his PR consultancy project. The consultancy is set to be based at Garden City Mall in Nairobi. For more information about the consultancy be free to visit other social media sites such as twitter @Corporate Anchor, Facebook and Google+ Anchor PR. www.corporateanchorpr.com


Monday 14 September 2015

ATTACHMENT IMPOSSIBLE




 Part One

The moment I ‘landed’ in third year the first thing I knew was that am a senior student waiting for fourth years to finish their few months before I officially become an elder and a finalist. Little did I know that there was something known as industrial attachment which one had to look for as part of the course. The moment you receive your attachment logbook and letter reality dawns, the course you are taking has limited or wide range of opportunities. In this case there are two things involved if your course has a wider scope you are safe, if your course has limited scope, a course even your lecturer is not sure where you are going to be employed or attached then know that your three year study at the university is wasted or something close to that.

During our departmental briefing our head of department Dr, Professor, and Commonwealth Scholar clearly stated that he will not come to supervise any student who goes for attachment in remote areas such as Mfangano Island and those islands in lake Victoria where boats are the only means of transport thus ferrying his French made Peugeot to and from the island a near impossible task thus making his mobility a problem. Proff also assured us that together with other lecturers in our department they won’t be able to supervise students who ‘decide’ to go for attachment in areas, which have security problems such as banditry plus areas with no telecommunication network since he cannot afford to be off the grid with his i-phone 6. Attachment supervision was limited within the borders of the republic those of us who had secured attachment overseas, my friend Andy Muphasa and I in this case had attachments already waiting for us to avail ourselves physically in Southern Sudan. However, we had to forego them since the jurisprudence of our department ends at Lodenyang and Lokichogio in Turkana County.

Having been instructed in advance not to take up funny responsibilities such as being a flower girl, tea boy, office messenger, file placement and displacement officer, number plate registration officer and receptionist. Being choosy in selecting an organization for attachment became mandatory so as not to be given those funny responsibilities. Getting an attachment seemed to be a herculean task more so if you are doing these courses which just came up the other day, the ones’ the office messenger and the gateman at the Organisation where you drop your Request For Attachment (RFA) letter have no idea if it is a course or a name of a person in the organization.


The emergence of new courses some of which are units of a mainstream course make it very difficult for attaches to get a field attachment. Despite having the a RFA letter four months prior to the day the attachment was set to begin and having dropped them in all organizations manually, all organizations that their names crossed my mind no response yet making me wonder where ‘Proff’ wants me to get an attachment. Most organizations decided to be ‘petty’ asking for documents such as primary school leaving certificate, high school leaving certificate, birth certificate, chief’s letter and certificate of good conduct which is given by the men in blue after a minimum of two weeks and a maximum of infinity for it to be processed as if I was a criminal. The moment you provide them with the required certificates they shift the goal post again claiming they need your first, second and third year complete transcripts, which obviously you don’t have instead of telling you directly there are no vacancy for attaches’ they take you for a merry go round ride which never ends, you just give up voluntarily.

Colleagues who often said from day one in our first year of study that they know where they will be attached and employed with “this course of ours” which we were given either voluntarily by the rebranded joint admissions board (JAB) or involuntarily courtesy of cut off points or something close to that. Some even claimed that the easiest thing to get is attachment as long as you take your letter personally to the organisation, having taken many letters to organizations personally and even applying online , nothing seemed to be coming my way ,the more I applied the more frustrated I became.

To be continued………………………….