Prioritise teacher welfare

Holidays are gone and a new term begins. Will it bring new beginnings? Children will leave home stocked with the finest their families can provide sometimes to the envy of the rest, but can this new term be a new beginning for that teacher who until the days leading to the end of the previous academic trimester endured the loaded and toiling routine of a civil servant needing a lift in his welfare? In the rural parts of the country, the routine walks to work begin as early as 5:00am so as to beat the 7:15am hour mark characteristic of beginning of academic work. After the the long bumpy walks through the hills, one may ask if by this time the teacher is fresh enough to go through the compact schedule of double shifts awaiting him. With this double shift system, a single teacher can work for a combined 10 hours of uninterrupted screaming and yelling. This may seem manageable for Africans used to a harder life with little alternatives but this later weighs on the teacher and in return affects the quality of education provided to the child. The second issue that needs to be addressed is the provision of meals in schools. Referring to the Education Times of April 15, 2014, the editor explained the need to have meals provided in schools as an initiative from government. This will not only be a welcomed by the many parents struggling to put bread on table but also provide relief to that struggling educator. That means incase provision of school meals becomes policy, it should not look at the child in isolation but also tbe instructor who delivers the knowledge. Say for example has anyone ever wondered how a hungry teacher can manage to instruct a satisfied pupil? The common objective between pupils and the teacher may be about achieving good results but how can that be achieved with the two parties nursing different contrasting conditions, many times a single cob of maize normally climaxes the long miserable days. Finally narrowing all this, is the most obvious as observed by many renumeration. On average, a primary teacher earns forty thousand francs a month, without an extra source of income to cater for his/her meals, pay rent and school fees among others. So as more policies are drawn into the current educational framework, the graph of implementation should first address the very basic and primary issues that directly affect the personnel entrusted with the future of the nation. Therefore, it is advisable for policy makers to take heed from psychologists who believe that a teacher well catered for, is education uplifted psychologically. The writer is school-based mentor