My mother was right.

My mother is being proven right each and every day local yokels are in charge of public policy. However, he solutions to my future challenges appear pie-in-the-sky-like; I do not think Canada, Australia, New Zealand or Scotland will welcome me with open arms when they find out that all I would be interested in is their rather effective free basic education for my sprogs. That would simply not be on for them. But given that is now OK to fire weapons at schoolchildren, I don't think I have a point any more.

The last decade has been bad for those Kenyans who use public schools. First, the Cabinet Secretary for Education "banned" the ranking of schools whose candidates sit for the national examinations. Second, teachers' unions went on strike because their employer, the Government of Kenya, personified my the Cabinet Secretary for Education, the Cabinet Secretary for Labour and the Chairperson of the Teachers Service Commission refuse to "sit down and negotiate in good faith" regarding the pay deal signed - wait for it - eighteen years ago. And now it is the policy of the Government of Kenya, personified by the Cabinet Secretary for Interior, the one for Education, the one for Lands, and the acting Inspector-General of Police to fire weapons at children. (Whether they are non-lethal or not is not the point; it is a matter of time before they morph from non-lethal to lethal.)

St Andrew's, Turi, the Banda School, Braeburn, Brookehouse and the Peponi School cater to a segment of the society to which my aspiration exceeds my talents. Should I dedicate my extra waking hours to side-hustles, abjure all my vices and extol the virtues of ritual fasting, i think I can just about take advantage of the Riara Group of Schools' excellent facilities or those of Makini School. I know for a fact that whatever appetite I had for even well-performing public schools is now over; in "poor" public schools the police can fire weapons at your children. only an idiot wants his child withing a hundred feet of a public school at which policemen stomp about like angry rhinos.

It isn't just the risk to my child that gives me pause about educating him or her in Kenya; the quality of education in public schools has tanked in recent years. The pursuit of examination marks - rather than education - is the overriding mark of public education. More young Kenyans are handicapped in the long run because they are incapable of comprehending simple instructions despite the numerous certificates they have amassed over their long academic careers. It is distressing that employers have to set up what amount to remedial programmes to prepare even university graduates for the employment on offer.

I do not know whether my children will surpass their father in academic achievement - or whether they will pursue a different goal. I know that the choice is not available to them because Mr Kaimenyi's ministry, today as over the past decade, is presiding over the hollowing out of polytechnics and middle-cadre colleges for the illusory prestige of university and university-college status. Should my child wish to become a master welder, of whom there are few and far between in Kenya, there isn't a polytechnic that could offer him the opportunity to train or apprentice. His only choice would be to join the National Youth Service or the Defence Forces; either option could see him firing weapons at schoolchildren.

Promises were made; none are being kept. My mother was right; she always is. It is time to bite the bullet and sidle over to that friendly immigration officer from a Commonwealth nation that shall remain unknown and begin the arduous courtship that might secure for my family permanent residency and the guarantee of a good education without the chance of the police firing weapons at my children.