The quality of education in public schools is highly dependent on the time the teachers spend with the students and how students implement their learning. However, this process is often disrupted by the often industrial actions by the teachers.  The creates gaps in the learning process of the students, which often reflect on their performance.

•    Insufficient Coverage of the Curriculum

During strikes, teachers cease all teaching activities, and schools are closed.In most parts of the world, children do not go to school for a couple of days.This affects the teacher-student contact time. It also disrupts the teaching programs as well as the exam timetables.

This means that there are challenges in covering the education curriculum. In the public schools where the curriculum is completed, it is not done comprehensively. This means that the impacting of the necessary skills and competencies is not comprehensive.   It has been reported that in the countries that experience the highest frequency of teachers’ strikes, the performance of the students is also affected. This shows that the quality of the education in the public schools which are affected by the strikes.

•    Social learning and modelling of Mass Action

Teacher’s industrial action is usually characterised by mass actions. In most parts of the globe, it is accompanied by riots and outbreaks of violence. This is seen in the areas of the country where some teachers refuse to join the mass action and continue to teach.

The mind of the student is highly impressionable. It is conditioned to learn.  The students go to school not only to learn what the teachers teach, but also what they do. Therefore, when the teachers take to the streets in mass action, the sub-conscious brain of the students is still learning. They end up modelling the behaviours portrayed by the teacher. They learn that mass action and sometimes violence as a way to resolve a stalemate.

This has contributed to the students using mass action to air their grievances. The university students, mostly express the behaviour. Education is supposed to educate people to be civilised in airing their opinions. However, the strikes teach the student how to use mass disobedience to achieve one’s goals.

•    Lack of Motivation

The strikes are held because the teachers are not satisfied with some of the aspects surrounding the profession.  Most rent-seeking teachers unions engage in industrial action in pursuit of higher salaries. These actions are not concerned with efficiency-enhancing policies.

This portrays a teaching force that is demoralised and demotivated by their working conditions. This ends up in less effort input in the quality of education resulting in lower quality of the education output.

 A lot of studies have been conducted to determine the empirical effects of the teachers strike on the learning process.  One of the findings of a study
conducted by Harvard’s Raegen Miller, John Willet and Richard Murnane showed that the extended absence of the teachers from class resulted in poor grades in maths and reading scores.

Most of the educational stakeholders agree that the governments should be more proactive in making sure that the teachers do not go on strike. This is because the effects on the students will eventually ripple through the country. Some of the challenges the country experience in its quest to grow the economy have their roots in the teacher’s strikes.