From: odhiambo okecth
Date: Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 7:51 AM
Mr. Joe Ombuor, in his piece in The Standard on Saturday10th October 2009, chronicles the achievements of Mzee Daniel Arap Moi in the education sector and his efforts at finding solution to the problems of Southern Sudan. It basically drove me back to history of what education used to be. About Southern Sudan and the achievements they have indicated, I do not know.
I went to school when we used to pay Kshs 20.00 at the chief’s camp per term. We were then given pencils, rulers, exercise books, and text books the whole term in school. I only used to take my signed filled exercise book to the school office and I was given a new exercise book in exchange. The school had cartons of supplies, chalk, dusters etc.
This was up till 1978 when Mzee Jomo Kenyatta died. I was then in class 7 reading for the Certificate of Primary Education –CPE. I joined Form 1 in 1979 and again, fee in secondary school was very manageable. The cost of transport in those poor roads was also manageable then.
Then Mzee Moi came with Free Primary Milk in primary school. I am happy it found when I had left primary education and was already in secondary school. He then started what they then called Free Primary Education. Remember, we were only paying Kshs 20.00 and all educational material was given to us.
But when Mzee Moi came up with the first Free Primary Education, educational supplements started disappearing. That is when education started going to the dogs. Parents started paying more than Kshs 20.00 in support of Free Primary Education. With Free Primary Education, government supplements started disappearing, and I would have expected Mr. Ombour to investigate this and come up with an informed opinion.
Parents started buying pencil, exercise books and text books in support of Free Primary Education. That is when parents started paying tuition fee in support of Free Primary education. That is when other hitherto unknown authors started appearing on the scene with different books in support of Free Primary Education.
Do you remember Safari Book 1, 2, 3 and 4 as texts that were immortal? Do you remember Primary Mathematics series? Then we had General Science Text Book. Those were the only books used for tuition instructions when we were paying Kshs 20.00 tuition, payable at the chief’s camp. Books were available in the schools and for each subject, the teachers came with enough text books to be shared in class. These were promptly collected as the lesson ended. But when Mzee Moi came with his version of Free Primary Education, many versions of the same subject texts were introduced as part of the curriculum and parents were told to buy all these books in support of Free Primary Education.
This is when our children in the lower primary began being subjected to reading all subjects from Mathematics to English to Geography, to History, to Ethics to Everything. With the coming of Mzee Moi to power, Free Primary Education came with costs hitherto not seen by parents. This is the time they killed the Kenya National Equipment Scheme, all in support of Free Primary Education. Perhaps Mr. Ombour might do a research on how Kenya National Equipment Scheme was looted under the Moi watch and eventually killed.
The rest as they say is history. Free Primary Education under the guidance of Mzee Moi became such a costly affair for the parents in Kenya to an extent that Mzee had to think of new avenues of creating pretended soft landings. He started building schools and naming them after himself. This is how all the Girls schools named after Moi were built. And in building these schools, the school head teachers in collusion with the Parents Teachers Associations made a kill.
They extorted money under the now infamous Building Fund to support this expansionist enterprise of Mzee Moi. Schools were built, very magnificent yes, but very shallow in out put. Pupils were subjected to grater coasts to sustain this ill move. This is the time Mzee Moi came up with the Quarter System that condemned students to their villages. This is also the time all teachers were posted back to their own villages. Vintage Moi.
It is also worth remembering that it was under Mzee Moi that all of a sudden the 7+4+2+3=16 system of education was changed to 8-4-4=0 system. Journalists will recall that the change was so abrupt to an extent that it created jam when there was double admission at the university at the first admissions of the Moi Graduates. That marked the death of quality education in Kenya.
And this is known all over the world; that Mzee Moi messed the education system in Kenya. And I bet it is time we all faced the truth. Mzee Moi killed our education system that was of high quality, and subjected our children to experiments and mediocrity. Some isolated cases of brightness managed to still shine through though.
We nowadays have graduates who cannot communicate effectively, courtesy of Mzee Moi and his 8-4-4=0 system of education. Our children stopped playing in school because of Mzee Moi and his 8-4-4=0 system of education. Children have stopped being children because of Mzee Moi. And I cannot for once give him credit on education.
He created all the mess that will take strong will to clean. Parents must rise up and demand answers; what does a child in class one do with all those books as currently listed for them?
There are areas where I can give Mzee Moi all the marks, like opening Kenya to all the corrupt networks, like creating impunity, like entrenching tribalism, like maintaining the cost of living at low levels- prices of essential commodities and like killing football in Kenya.
But to credit Mzee Moi with building several schools and forget the pain the parents have born with the heavy costs therein attendant is to miss the point by very wide margins.
Odhiambo T Oketch,
Chair; Stakeholders Evaluation Team –Nairobi
Tel; 0735 529 126, 0724 365 557,
Email; komarockswatch@yahoo.com, friendofkcdn@gmail.com
http://kcdnkomarockswatch.blogspot.com
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Subject: Moi’s indelible mark on education and peace