Many school principals dissipate the salaries of women teachers under lame pretexts. They collect money from them to hold parties to celebrate Tree Week or Traffic Week and other mundane events and occasions.
Principals will also ask women teachers to pay for new curtains for the teachers’ room, decoration for the school, a larger photocopy machine or even a new refrigerator. Hell will break loose if a teacher was to object or refuse to contribute. The principal will immediately take an antagonistic attitude toward her.
The situation becomes worse in the case of elementary teachers. They are expected to encourage their students by buying them gifts, sweets, toys and other similar items. The principal will differentiate between her teachers on this basis. The woman teacher who gives gifts to her students will become her favorite.
Teachers are expected to do what principals ask of them without questioning. They have no right to ask the principal about the school budget or whether it is their duty or the duty of the Ministry of Education to purchase gifts for students. What use are salaries if teachers are expected to spend them on students and other school items? This has gone too far in girls’ schools.
It is a common belief that the success of education largely depends on the performance of teachers. This, however, does not mean that male and female teachers should spend their salaries on schools and students on the pretext that they should be doing all in their power to ensure their students excel academically.
Teachers should rather be given more benefits and incentives so they do not look for other types of work after school to pay bills. They should not enter classrooms burdened with commitments that they cannot honor because their salaries are not enough.
We should also not be oblivious to the feelings of teachers by asking them to take more care of others’ children while their own children are far away.
The process of education cannot be successful when we employ qualified young men and women and put them under a principal who is backward and only knows how to pass circulars around. These principals are adamant on crushing young teachers and putting a stop to them thinking in an enlightened fashion. Education will not progress as long as we chain these teachers down and force them to spend their salaries on things that they are not responsible for.
