Teachers who have guaranteed their colleagues who have opted for green pastures abroad are frustrated after financial institutions pursue them over defaulted loans.
The teachers are reported to receive incessant calls from banks, Saccos and Shylocks threatening them on planned deductions from their payslips if their colleagues whom they guaranteed don’t behave within specified period.
Education News has learnt that among the teachers who joined the foreign bandwagon in search of highly paying ventures are teachers who were on the TSC payroll and had secured big loans with the local financial institutions. Some of the teachers are said to have gone to foreign states without the knowledge of their employer and their guarantors.
The relocated teachers with impending loans are reported to have gone to Australia, Canada, Qatar, and England.
“I just learned about the flight of my colleague a day before he departed. I am already stressed by the daily calls from a Shylock on his arrears. I wish I could get assistance on how to reach him,” lamented Benard from Uasin Gishu.
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The lack of information among teachers who leave the service for greener pastures abroad has widely been blamed on the head teachers, who don’t give timely reports on their colleagues’ presence at the station.
Speaking in Kapsabet town, a local union official said that the headteachers, as the agents of the commission at school, should always know their teachers’ whereabouts.
“When a headteacher fails to track the behaviours and signs of a teacher to the extent of causing suffering to their colleagues after relocating before repaying loans, that amounts to negligence of duty,” said the agitated union official.
He further implored TSC to institute mechanisms allowing such randy defaulters to repay loans even after relocating to their destinations.
TSC has recently been facing an unprecedented shortage of teachers, occasioned by exits. The latest common exit has been the relocation of teachers to countries with teacher shortages and attractive remuneration compared to Kenya.
Over 3,400 teachers, both employed and unemployed, are estimated to have left Kenya in the last 28 months for America, Australia, Germany, and the Middle East.
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