What higher salaries for teachers will mean

In 1997, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) under the fiery Secretary-General Ambrose Odongo forced President Moi’s government to accept a 300 per cent salary increment for teachers. This is the reason behind the cat-and-mouse game between Knut and the Teachers Service Commission.

The current controversy is about the 50-60 per cent increment ordered by the High Court and reinstated by both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

Contractual rights and responsibilities aside, I want to briefly review the context of this increase and what it will mean for Kenya in the short, medium and long terms.

In the short term, the government must find a way to pay teachers. This may mean cutting down on development expenditure, selling some State assets, scrapping some government programmes or borrowing. A cordial discussion for a rational solution is unlikely following the brinkmanship witnessed in the court process.

Once this increase is implemented, teachers’ pay will naturally be above the rest of the civil service. This will reveal to other civil servants that if you insist hard, the government will eventually budge.

In the medium term, pressure will pile on civil service union leaders to bring civil service pay at par with that of teachers. Leaders of other civil service unions will be compelled to act. They occupy highly lucrative positions that are elective, and their chances of re-election will be based on their performance.

The members will want them to act. The government will begin negotiations with these unions from a position of weakness, having established precedence in the teachers’ case. Chances of the government avoiding an ugly standoff exist, but they are minute.

It must be remembered that since 2010, average public sector wages have been higher than those in the private sector. This has made the public sector the employer of choice, out-competing the private sector for talent. To attract talent, the private sector will increase salaries to match those offered by the government.

NEW ROUND OF AGITATION

This, when coupled with the extra taxes the government has to levy to pay a higher wage bill, will naturally increase the general cost of commodities consumed by Kenyans. Naturally, this will wipe out the extra value gained by the wage increases in both the public and private sectors.

A new round of union agitation for a further increase in public sector wages may again begin, citing (and rightly so) the rising cost of living.

High private sector salaries will make local products uncompetitive in foreign markets. As a result, many will opt for automation to manage their cost of production, leading to layoffs, shrinking of new job opportunities, and rising unemployment.

The government can implement a few necessary but short-term solutions, but in the long term, some structural changes that require courage and unprecedented political commitment must be instituted.

Wastage of public funds through corruption must be dealt with.

The reason teachers are more vocal in their salary demands compared to civil servants is because, in spite of their seeming equivalence in salaries, civil servants seem to live ‘better’ than teachers. The explanation is simple: Civil servants have regular travel allowances supplementing their pay. Sadly, moreover, some take advantage of their positions to collude with suppliers to corruptly enrich themselves. Most teachers lack this opportunity.

A dedicated teacher who spends most of her time in the classroom with her pupils has no cookie jar around to tempt her. Teachers live in Kenya and know why these differences exist. They also know that if government eliminated corruption, there would be enough money to increase their salaries – and they are right.

Mr Momanyi is a policy analyst based in Nairobi. ([email protected])