Are we at a tipping point? Ever since the Government of Kenya accepted the prescriptions of the Bretton-Woods institution regarding Kenya's economic development, it has reduced the amount it transfers to key public sector institutions, notably education and healthcare. The result, as has been witnessed even in the decade of positive economic growth under Mwai Kibaki, has been a series of public-sector strikes in these key sectors and rising dissatisfaction in the quality of public services offered.
In recent weeks the focus has been on basic education and tertiary education, where selection to secondary schools of choice for form one students has been marred by accusations of inequity and inequality, and doubts being raised about the quality of tertiary education after the expose of a local trades college.
Public schools offering basic education have faced the brunt of poor financial planning by the government, especially by the education ministry. But that is par for the course; the health ministry is in a similarly parlous place as are the internal security ministry and labour ministry. Moreover, basic education policy-making has also suffered. Proactive forward planning has ceased to be a defining feature of basic education policy-making, with government intervention being knee-jerk in response to escalating crises year on year. The recent teachers' strike over unfulfilled promises is a classic ongoing example as was the recent parents' strike over the high fees charged for secondary school education. The Kilemi Mriria Commission appointed to address the scondary school fees question prescribed traditional Government of Kenya solutions that have failed in the past: fees freezes and ministerial circulars on fees structures.
One strategic solution that continues to receive the ministry's cold shoulder remains the massive expansion of secondary school infrastructure over the next decade or so accompanied by an expansion in the total number of teachers appointed by the Teachers' Service Commission. This, coupled with the abolition of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education and the incorporation of assessing students' skills at every stage of their basic education, should ensure that the goal of free basic education for all is achieved, and may yet encourage greater and more effective transition to tertiary or university levels.
Each primary school should be linked to a secondary school, perhaps on a two-to-one ration for the time being with the goal being parity in the long run. Skills assessment should not be exam-based but holistic; the ability to recall curricula or syllabi should not be the only method of determining the degree or level of skill a child in primary or secondary school has. Such an assessment could be conducted every four years so that if a child is unable to complete their basic education for whatever reason, they are not completely without a record of what they can and cannot do should they choose to look for employment, or should they choose to pursue some other form of education or training later on.
Where the rate of transition from primary level to secondary level is guaranteed by the linking of primary schools to secondary schools, the need for residential or boarding schools might be reduced. With the expansion in the engagement of more teachers, the quality of teaching might rise as each will be responsible for fewer students, increasing the chances of equitable attention to all students and thereby better skills retention and higher facts recall. Ultimately, the long term goal should be the rise in the quality of education to the extent that the cache of "national schools" admission might be blunted, and they in turn, might be more diverse in their admission, not just admitting the cream of the crop and thereby fostering an elitism that is detrimental to national integrity or cohesion, but by admitting students from all walks, whether of superior academic credentials or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment