Feature: Idle Kenyan pupils take up work as teachers strike stretches on

The Kenyan child is bored, tired and fatigued of staying at home as teachers' strike continues in the East African nation.

The over 12 million schoolchildren have been at home for the third-straight-week as teachers battle the government to implement a 50-60 percent pay rise as ordered by the industrial court.

The battle has been fought on the streets, in boardrooms and most importantly in the courts but the two are far from agreeing on how to end the stalemate.

And as they fight, the idle Kenyan child is struggling to find something relevant to do.

Majority of them have decided to take up work to beat the idleness, hoping that the strike would end soon and they would resume school.

In the capital Nairobi, the jobs the children are doing include selling peanuts on the streets, begging, helping their parents with household chores and selling in shops.

The lucky ones are playing from dawn to dusk or trooping video showrooms to beat idleness that could turn them into zombies.

In rural Kenya, the pupils, some as young as seven-year-olds, are helping their parents put food on the table by working in quarries, manning their small shops and harvesting maize and other crops that are in season.

Some parents, particularly in Western Kenya, where maize harvesting is currently going on, have found cheap labour, thanks to the strike.

"I have four children, two in secondary school and two in primary school. As soon as the strike started, I told them clearly that l will not hire people to help me harvest maize from my seven acres. This is the job they are currently helping me do," Samuel Aluvale, a maize farmer in Soy, Trans Nzoia, said on phone on Tuesday.

Aluvale would have hired at least three people to help him do the work at 2.9 U.S. dollars wage each a day but the strike has saved him the cost.

"If I had not told them to help me on the farm, they would perhaps be sitting idle in the house. The work has helped them spend their time wisely and be useful at home as we hope the government resolves the matter soon," he said.

Away from Western Kenya in Nairobi, the strike has pushed up the number of children selling various items and begging on the streets.

Ordinarily when the schools are in session, the children from slum districts in the capital flock the city center in the evening after school to sell their parents' wares and beg.

However, with the strike going on, they have plenty of time to do the work. They are coming into the city centre as early as 10am and stay until late in the evening.

Little John, a Class Four pupil in a public school in Korogocho slum on the east of Nairobi, is among those on the streets.

"I now come into the city centre at 11am to sell groundnuts," said the 10-year-old. The boy seemed to be enjoying his work as he scouted for customers along Agakhan Walk Tuesday evening.

Her mother must be a happy woman as the boy engages in the job full-time.

Cynthia Wanjiku, a social worker with a Community Based Organisation in Korogocho, said the teachers' strike is working against the pupils as parents have found an excuse to make them work.

"During school holidays, not all children work as some go to school to read on their own but with the strike, they have no excuse. Their parents are pushing them to work," he said.

On Tuesday, the High Court ruled that it will give its verdict on whether to call off the strike or not on Sept. 25, meaning the Kenyan pupil is sure of staying away from school for many more days. Endit