When the Kenya Met announced that as a consequence of the La Nina Phenomenon, parts of Kenya would experience drought in 2011, the announcement was met with the usual Government's promise to prepare and take the necessary precautions to safeguard the interests of the people in the areas that would be affected. Those promises have been broken and Kenyans, once again, are horrified by media reports of their fellow citizens starving to death. When the Ministry of Education published the results of the 2010 KCPE examinations, it emerged that pupils from 'private' schools outperformed those from public schools (and beneficiaries of 'free' primary education). It was apparent that, once again, the children whose parents had skimped and saved to provide them with the best possible education would grab the lion's share of positions in our 18 national schools. In reaction to the outcry that 'rich' families were locking out 'poor' families in the provision of the best secondary education, the Minister for Education, Hon. Prof. Sam Ongeri announced that his ministry would reserve only 27.1% of the positions to pupils from private academies, with the remainder for the successful candidates from the public schools.
These two incidents demonstrate, as nothing else will, that in Kenya, that politicians do not have the public interest at heart, but all their pronouncements are geared towards achieving some hitherto unknown and unexplained political goal. How can it be that the Ministries of Agriculture, Special Programmes, Livestock Development, Fisheries Development, and Water and Irrigation are not prepared to address the catastrophic effects of the drought? How come it is only after Kenyans die horrific deaths that they are now preparing a disaster response programme to offer succour and support to those facing death? Dr. Sally Kosgei, Esther Murugi, Mohammed Kuti, Amason Jeffa Kingi, and Charity Ngilu had ample time to prepare to respond adequately to the disaster unfolding in arid and semi-arid areas, especially given the timely warning of the Kenya Met, but they did not. As a result, because of their dithering, and before the machinery of Government is fully engaged, many more Kenyans will die and many more heads of cattle, sheep and goats will be destroyed. The cost to the economies dependent on livestock production will be severely crippled. More importantly though, the Ministers, Assistant Ministers and Permanent Secretaries in these ministries will not face sanctions or censure. It will, in other words, be business as usual.
However, given that these will not be 'new' stories, Kenyans and their 'free' press will focus on the other story, that of 'rich' families usurping the right of 'poor' families to education for their children. The definition of a 'private' school needs to be qualified extensively to bring out the true picture of the situation on the ground. Not all 'academies' are equal; anyone who says so is a moron and his views must be ignored. There is no way that an objective comparison can be made between, say Makini School and a private academy in the depths of Kibera. What they have in common is parents who are or were dismayed by the manner in which the FPE has been managed and chosen instead, to set aside significant proportions of their (sometimes) meagre incomes to ensure that their children attend schools that offer them the best opportunity to pass national exams. In dispensing with meritocracy as a criterion for choosing who attends and who doe not attend a national school, the Minister for Education is sending a powerful message - it is not the effort or the skills demonstrated that secure you your rights, but whether or not you are a member of a powerful political lobby. As Dr. Lukoye Atwoli suggests in today's Sunday Nation, the logical conclusion to this madness is the creation of a private government to address the political, social and economic needs of 'rich' Kenyans.
The Ministry of Education must be held to account for the manner in which it has managed the basic education sector. It has failed to make arrangements for the hiring of additional teachers to keep pace with the explosion of pupils' numbers in classrooms across the country. It has failed to ensure that the best teachers in the public sector are rewarded while the mediocre ones are re-trained, or if they prove incapable of change, removed. It has failed to provide for the improvement of facilities in all public primary schools and as a result, 8 years after the inauguration of FPE, scenes of school-children packed like sardines in inadequate classrooms still continue to dominate. Isn't it a wonder that the private sector has wiped the floor with the public schools? Again, it is almost certain that Prof. Ongeri and his subordinates will keep their jobs and change will be slow in coming to the basic education sector in Kenya.
Now that we entering the final leg to 2012, all Ministers and their political acolytes will be too busy to address the critical policy needs of their portfolios, concentrating instead, on the need to secure re-election, or election to new positions. Kenyans will still starve to death. Successful pupils will see their right to the best education being trashed in the name of 'equity'. And Kenya will continue to celebrate mediocrity at the highest and lowest levels. Doesn't it just make you proud to be a Kenyan?
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