If there is one person I would like to meet over a cup of tea, or a glass of something stronger, and share our experiences of working for this thankless government, it is one Dr Patrick Amoth. In case you haven't heard of him, he was our hero of Covid management, the man who successfully led us through the pandemic.
At the time, Dr Amoth was the acting director of general health. You will be surprised that he is still the acting director of medical health, many years down the road. And that is exactly the reason I would like to meet the good Doctor, because he and I are in the same WhatsApp group.
If you remember, I became acting deputy of our school long before I was appointed acting deputy! For over four years, I was officially acting, and it took the intervention of someone senior at TSC to push my name before I was finally confirmed for the role.
At the time, Bensouda was the HM, and rarely in school. I effectively became the acting HM, for I literally ran the school on her behalf.
When Bensouda was forcefully retired in late 2021, I was very sure that I would be appointed HM immediately. After all, I had been acting for close to four years and had taken this school forward in leaps and bounds. Even if the TSC had appointed me, the appointment would have been four years late.
But TSC is just TSC. Instead, they asked me to become acting HM, and it seems like they have forgotten about this – just like the government forgot about Dr Amoth. I have done everything possible, even visited TSC offices in the county and in Nairobi to plead my case in futility. A source intimate to the person responsible for promotions told me that there is a new scheme of services that requires me to reach a certain level.
Unlike before when we simply worked with simple job groups, this new scheme of service requires one to be good at calculus, proficient in Pythagoras theory, articulate in matrices and eloquent in statistics to understand it.
I did not need a calculator to know this was just a TSC way of denying deserving teachers opportunities and giving them to the cronies and girlfriends of honchos. This is why I would like to meet Dr Amoth and share our experiences, no, our frustrations with the appointing authorities.
So, after acting for so long, I made a decision never to let another son or daughter of a woman go through similar suffering. I would not let anyone act for long. Upon being made acting HM, I immediately made Kuya, the senior-most teachers after me, the acting deputy.
Though undeserving, I had hope Kuya would be confirmed as deputy, but in another school. This, however, did not happen, and shortly after, frustrations overcame him and before you could say the word ‘acting’, we were not on talking terms, as he blamed me for not securing him a confirmation as deputy. How could I, who had not been confirmed as HM, frustrate his confirmation?
Without hesitating, I dropped Kuya and appointed Mrs Atika, the oldest teacher at Mwisho wa Lami (she taught me in Class Eight by the way). That was a mistake. You see, Mrs Atika’s husband has a good job in Nairobi. She just teaches to keep herself busy and make money for the salon.
Mrs Atika treated the job as an afterthought. The time she acted deputy was the time this school was at its lowest point, for she rarely was in, and when she was, never cared. She would delegate duties to Alex – at a fee.
As a decisive leader, I did not hesitate to drop her, and appoint Alex as my new deputy. Alex is a young, hot-blooded teacher who was a classmate of Fiolina in Mosoriot TTC. I would find him with Fiolina several times when I visited her.
Although Alex is diligent, he drives teachers and students to the wall and is not liked. I dropped him, sometime last year and appointed Lena, her terrible hair in town. It was a disastrous month with her at the helm. The less said about her reign, the better.
Within three weeks, I asked Madam Ruth to take over. If you have forgotten, Madam Ruth is the wife of Juma, a former deputy of the school and a HM of a neighbouring school. Juma has always wanted to come back as HM of this great school.
To my shock, he used the opportunity of his wife being deputy to run the school by proxy. She did everything he told her to do, and he would drop her in school, then proceed to inspect the school, criticise things, and make stupid recommendations.
The school could not have two HMs, so I dropped Madam Ruth. In came Sella. Her time will be remembered for absenteeism. As you know, Sella is pursuing her degree at Maseno University, and she is forever on a matatu to and from Maseno, literally everyday – and tells everyone.
You would think she is the first teacher to go for a degree. Some of us started that over 10 years ago and we do not brag.
That is how Nzomo found herself the acting deputy. To my surprise, people started making some false accusations about Nzomo and me. How could it be true, yet I am happily married? This year, I started the cycle again. It is not right for someone to act for long! In the meantime, Dr Amoth, please reach me on the email below, and let us meet and plot how we will be confirmed for our roles!
