Title: Teachers, Union And Labour Relations In Kenya (A History of The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers- Kuppet

Author: Akello Misori with John Onyando

Publisher: Free Press Publishers Limited, 2020

Volume: 364 pages
 
Reviewer: Manuel Odeny

With the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers just finishing her branch level elections and the national elections looming which can change the two decade national administration I drifted to read the book.

The tenure of Akello Misori, the current Kuppet national Secretary General since 2006 to either continue or step down formed part of the branch elections which were marred with violence and court cases.

Having been a teacher for over three decades and being in union politics by 2002 wheh he was elected as first Kuppet Migori branch executive secretary, Misori alongside journalists John Onyando did the teaching profession justice by writing this book.

It is divided into nine chapters; with the first two of them delve into unionism and Kenya independence journey and the place of teachers in it.

The third to fifth chapter deals the birth of Kuppet and sixth to eighth captures it teaching problems while the last chapter comes across as the authors musing on future of union and labour relations, not only in Kenya but across the continent and the globe.

When I picked the book I expected it to just capture musing of an activist and unionist to only talk about teachers and safeguarding of their rights like remuneration and work environment, and leave that solemn part of ensuring efficient and quality public basic education.

Akello holds the readers in the first chapter with the stark reality of state of Kenya education with an anecdote of the 23 September 2019 gruesome incident at Precious Talents Academy in Ngando slums, Nairobi when a building collapsed and eight pupils died.

A simple circular by the late George Magoha, by then education waziri to close the school and issue a circular to close all schools with unsafe structures is expounded to show grim reality of Kenyans seeking better education with the author bringing comparison of data from institutions, teachers, students and need for access of education.

This hook and the Misori’s own story of difference between harambee and government schools in the past with his own personal experience in 1980 when as students at Alara Secondary School in Homa Bay led a strike demanding teachers to be posted at the harambee school, but being transferred to a better government school at Wang’apala Secondary School.

Showed that same problems bedeviling education from pre-independence through 80s and current is like history, it might not be the same but it rhymes.

Accepts that many teachers are yet to join unions because of sometimes protracted union leadership wrangles

Birth of Kuppet, fallout with Knut

The most intriguing part of Kuppet is when Misori writes on agitation of formation of Kuppet which was officially registered as a trade union November 26, 1998 with Tom Chariga as the first Secretary General.

The idea that the then President Daniel Moi tired by Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) long running strikes with a 12 days and 28 days in 1997 and 1998 led him to push through the formation of Kuppet lingers.

Hitherto, ever since Kuppet has been tagged as government moles and saboteurs against teachers’ rights, an image Misori comes to length to fight. The hostility between the two unions is still palatable even today.

He goes at pain to dedicate the entire chapter eight to set the record straight including a personal an anecdote when he was a teacher at Migori Boys Secondary School for 16 years until 2005 when he went to complain at Migori branch official after strike when he was told to be satisfied with an increase on his pay slip. It was just Ksh180.

Misori explains that from 1980s Knut leadership chose to ignore teachers’ intern especially those in universities who were harassed by the Kanu regime and didn’t agitate enough for secondary and university educated teachers.

Here he even brings in Wilson Sossion in 2002 during a botched teachers strike when they were both students at Kenyatta unit, him having being elected as Kuppet secretary general in Migori and Sossion as his counterpart from Knut Bomet branch.

An attempt at historical record

The book succeeds to contribute to the knowledge on teachers’ unionism in Kenya over the last 50 years as Misori goes deep to interview players including Chariga, glean through parliament hansards, libraries and research records. Here the book as an academic prose with citation and annotated footnotes.

Onyando’s hand, as a seasoned journalists and Misori’s advisor hand in the book comes when the book breaks into long prose of narration that makes the reader whizz through the pages in captivating narration.

But this combination between putting historical events on record and juxtaposing them with personal opinion makes the book to lack a strand of objectivity in which Misori acknowledges; “while I have tried to be objective, I will accept that this is just one narrative,”  in the preface.

He generously welcomes critics because he has personally criticized several union figures and government officials, and say such criticism will be key lerning from such weakness for future better education sector.