By Eric Wamanji
Recently, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) floated an advert inviting consultants to re-parching its shredded image. Of course chaps at TSC thought, rightly so, that you need an image doctor to make-up the wrinkles and acnes afflicting the commission.
In general, the TORs appreciated that TSC is being viewed, wrongly, as an oppressor of teachers. Yet, it believes it is doing a terrific job. TSC wants you, the public, to perceive it as the latter-day messiah of the plight teachers.
Hail! Folks, soon we are going to cheer a new-look TSC strut on the catwalk.
But I think the crafters of the entire image reconstruction scheme ignored something. They dwelt so much on a media guru. One who can manipulate the media or even to tone down its “negative” reportage on TSC or even “kill bad” stories entirely. It happens anyway.
But what TSC ignored is that the media do not have any beef with it. Neither the media are a competitor, nor Kenyans have a dust of chalk to pick with it. Kenyans and the media just respond to TSC’s conduct.
That is why when I saw the TORs were obsessed with media spin I cringed. Most armature strategies of communication are founded on the quicksand of imagining that once you manipulate media content you have won the image battle.
Yet, image, is a product of a complex enterprise involving series of immaculate bits and pieces. It is the actions that will spawn charming narratives. Starting with media whitewash is putting the cart before the horse. Unimpeachable actions are indispensable in image construction, otherwise, preaching water and drinking wine can only be comical at best and disastrous at worst.
And for sure not long before the TSC could even pick the top spin-doctor in town, it adamantly rubbished a court directive to pay teachers their September dues. This is not only an epitome of impunity but also an ignorant calculation that further mutilates the commission’s image. TSC squandered a golden PR opportunity to showcase its “compassion” streak. That is how friendship and trust is constructed. You need concessions.
But TSC is stubborn. Just this week, it unleashed another hidden card. It has declined to collect deductions on behalf of unions. Any kindergarten kid would tell you that TSC is determined to paralyse unions. It is an emotional move. Was someone so gravely embarrassed that could not swallow a piece of chalk and later opted to make such an irrational, unfair, and barbarous move?
Guys, relax. Don’t be emotional when managing an outfit like TSC. Unions are a necessary evil. If for every strike leaders would be emotional and throw tantrums, no modern society can flourish. Unions are part and parcel of an industrial society, and smart employers know how to engage them devoid of emotions.
Even theatrics of sacking striking teachers and the equally whacky arrow of hiring others on contracts was ill-advised. That is why TSC should sober up and find a lasting solution to teachers’ issues. It may not be cash, but TSC for instance can negotiate for near negligible interest-free loans for teachers. Teacher will appreciate such a revolving fund. TSC need to rethink its welfare strategies.
Punishing teachers, with all the airs of a commission reminds me of the village drunk who trips, falls on mad and spins in the murk, turning this way and that way as the village kids enjoy the spectacle.
How do you expect the public to sing you hosannas and Kumbayas when their neighbour, friend, relative is a teacher wallowing in misery? How do you command respect from a battalion of persons whose throats and lungs are chocked by chalk dust yet yours is to issue threats. You see, we are past the era of servitude. The employer-employee relationship scheme is indispensable in our current dispensation. You need teachers on your side to support the commission’s bid of educating this country.
TSC invokes some clause that empowers it to withhold such salaries. Granted, the law has to be honoured.
But someone remind TSC and its advisors that the law is an ass, as they say, and obsession with it blurs the bigger picture. Haven’t the chair and her CEO heard of Christ posing whether a donkey will be let to die in a ditch just because it is Sabbath?
Truth is that there is hubris at TSC. Such an attitude towards poor teachers will backfire. Climb down from the perch at the Upper Hill Ivory Tower and understand the teachers.
By hanging on salary, by issuing threats and by designing to cripple unions, you are just affirming the oppressive nature of your institution. You confirm that you don’t care a hoot whether the poor teachers suffer or not. You don’t care whether they have obligations or not. You are obstinate like a mule. That is not good for your image. You may whitewash it, through millions poured in spin, but it will still be etched in our minds of the misery with which you have subjected your employees. To paraphrase John Ruganda’s The Floods, massive media spin won’t wash the stink and stain away.
But one thing I can assure TSC: image reconstruction is not the simplistic act of spinning the media. You will be shocked.
Mr. Wamanji is a media and communication advisor wamanji@rococo.co.ke @manjis