The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) will hold its elections early next year. Already, at the county level, the air is thick with campaigns. The incumbents are combing through schools, lobbying in staffrooms, and calling in favours. The challengers are equally aggressive, promising heaven without explaining how they will deliver it.
Yet beneath this frenzy, one reality stands out — this is not about service. It is about self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, and survival in a union that has, for far too long, lost touch with its lifeblood: the classroom teacher.
Many of those vying have no coherent agenda. They cannot articulate a single fresh idea to improve teachers’ welfare. Instead, they mobilise along tribal lines, forming shaky alliances of convenience that collapse the moment one side’s appetite for office is not satisfied. These alliances are not built to champion teachers’ rights. They are built to share positions and perks.
The tragedy is that while these politicking games play out, the teacher on the ground continues to bear the brunt of stagnated salaries, punitive taxation, overloaded workloads, and dwindling allowances. The classroom teacher’s problems are not getting smaller — but the attention they receive from union leaders is.
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At the national level, the script is even more disheartening. There is an unmistakable pattern of amending KUPPET’s constitution and election rules to entrench incumbents. Every tweak is designed to make it harder for fresh blood to contest national seats. It is a slow but deliberate conversion of union leadership into a closed shop, where leaders rule indefinitely without fear of challenge.
This is a betrayal of the very principles on which trade unionism stands. A union is supposed to be a collective voice of its members, not a playground for careerists. Yet KUPPET’s current trajectory shows a disturbing prioritisation of office security over service delivery.
Teachers are not blind to this rot, but many have fallen into the trap of voting with their hearts instead of their heads. Tribal loyalty, school-zone rivalries, and empty promises have too often clouded judgment during elections. The result is a recycling of the same inept, self-serving individuals, term after term, while the plight of teachers remains unchanged.
We must be brutally honest: a leader who seeks office without a tangible, measurable, and teacher-focused agenda is not worth your vote. A leader who spends more time politicking than fighting for fair pay and better working conditions does not deserve your trust. A leader who builds their base on tribal arithmetic instead of policy is a danger to the unity and bargaining power of the union.
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It is time for teachers to demand more. Ask every candidate one simple question: What have you done, and what will you do to improve the welfare of the classroom teacher? If they cannot answer convincingly, they have no business leading a union.
The coming elections must be a turning point. Reject the sweet talkers who emerge only in election season with handshakes, empty slogans, and whispered tribal pacts. Reject those who have sat in office for years yet have no tangible record of fighting for your welfare. Reject those who see KUPPET not as a platform for advocacy, but as a personal retirement plan.
Your salary is heavily taxed. Your allowances are shrinking. Your workload is increasing. Yet those who should be fighting for you are instead fighting for themselves. That is the reality. And the only way to change it is to use your vote wisely.
Vote with your head, not your heart. Vote for leaders with ideas, not just faces you know. Vote for those who understand your struggles because they share them — not those who exploit them for political gain.
KUPPET does not belong to the incumbents. It does not belong to the tribal brokers. It belongs to the classroom teachers. And unless teachers reclaim it, the same selfish cycle will repeat, while your welfare continues to sink deeper into neglect.
By Newton Maneno
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