It’s vital to restructure the management of our education systems in order to conform to the recently ratified constitution but the ministry of education should be careful about the plans of adopting the American model of education.
We don’t to borrow an education system from any country but rather to restructure the prevailing system for improvement. The USA system is far from being perfect despite the Country having dedicated teachers and being equipped with modern learning facilities.
Currently, the Country is struggling with poor management and under performance in their elementary and secondary schools. Many Parents are now opting to “vouchers” provided by the government to enable them pay tuition for their children in private schools after pulling them out of public schools.
Political leaders have conflicting views on the voucher program. Those who support the program argues that it gives parents freedom to choose schools for their children when they under perform in public schools. Those opposed to the program terms it as a destroyer of public schools. They strongly advocates for government support to under performing schools through funding and retraining teachers.
Having been to College in American, lecturers opine that the standard of our education is superior based on the excellence of Kenyan college University goers. This is a clear demonstration that the model of education Kenya wants to adopt is not free of loopholes.
Firstly, the Ministry of education should focus on a plan to equip public elementary and secondary schools with learning equipments like computers to improve ICT and also facilitate the establishment of at least one library in every when established as stipulated in the new constitution. These will boost students’ performance.
Education is the citadel point that defines the success of any nation. Leaving the sector on the hands of counties will be a grave mistake. It will be fair for the central government to manage curriculum development, hire teachers and manage national examinations the way it has always been.
Secondly, there is need to entrench new study modules in the curriculum like, peace education, conflict resolution, corruption and human rights. These will give learners a good foundation in their psyche to become good citizens.
It will add value given the fact that the country has been through negative events which threatened peaceful co-existence. Regrettably, the Ministry of education hasn’t nurtured young school goers who saw the violence that engulfed Kenya more than two years a go with peace education.
To ensure that young Kenyans understand their background and heritage, History and Swahili should be compulsory subjects in primary and secondary schools.
In my view, to build an upright society, religious education should be compulsory in Primary and secondary schools. The Bible says: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” This stresses need to mold young school goers with integrity while young.
Our major religions like Christianity, Islam and Hindu teaches moral values that should be taught in schools to boost the ethical values of young Kenyans.
Kenya is a very small country compared to the USA. We recently adopted a constitution which borrowed heavily from theirs but the government of Kenya should let our education system be structured to suit our prevailing standards.
It’s unworkable to leave the management of our schools on the hands of devolved units- counties units which cannot address tackle even the rampant irregularities that the country experiences during national exams.
Finally, the management of our education system should remain the way it is today but focus should be on improvement at all levels. Let us not rush to adopt a foreign system when the existing one can be strengthened and improved to conform to the needs of Kenyans.
Joseph Lister Nyaringo
New Jersey, USA
Lester Nyaringo’s letter about American High School education is interesting.
I agree with him that we should not copy their system for our high school education. I have taught at several Universities here in Kenya, in Swaziland and
South Africa (three universities in SA). My observation is that our high school of four years is too short on two counts. One, the students do not get enough time to adequately cover high school syllabuses, hence the proliferation of vacation tuitions. Two, a child who goes to primary school at age five(should actually be six) and does not fail any year, gets to University, assuming no backlog, at about age 17 give or take one year (plus or minus one year). This is a very young age for a child to leave home and go and live at College with all that college environment entails. I would prefer a child going to college at 18.5 at the earliest and ideally at 19. If one wants his child to look smart by going to school at 17 or even 16, that is just 1.5 and 2.5 years from 18.5 and 2 and 3 years from 19 respectively. Now, a little algebra tells us that if the child will live to 75 years of age, then the “time lost” by waiting until he is 19 instead of 17 is about 2.7% of his lifetime. This is really negligible but it allows the child to mature and be ready for College education during which time he is able to make realistic judgment about what he really wants to be in life. But if one wants to show off how smart one’s child is, I would ask them to try and find out how many of the best performing children at KSCE end up with a Master’s degree in any field and how well are they adjusted in life. A batchelor’s degree does not go far these days.
Finally, for anyone who has gone to a US University, particularly, for a Ph.D. degree, the first thing that comes across is the amount of teaching and tests and homework that goes into teaching undergrad students, especially, first years. This is really a remedial measure to correct the deficiencies from high school. By the time a student is a sphomore he has cleared the deficiencies and now the college education really begins.
I am not sure whether going back to A levels or just adding one more year to our high school or reducing the number of courses is the remedy, but one thing I would strongly recommend, when working out our curriculum for high schools, to leave out as many education experts as possible in this undertaking. My take is that education experts do not add value to education. They have never done so before either. That is why we are in this mess in the first place. I would go for subject specialists-chemistry Ph.D. for chemistry, Physics, Ph.D. for physics, Maths Ph.D. for maths, Sociology Ph.D. for Sociology etc.
Thank you,
Prof. Odhiambo Oyoko, Ph.D. (Theoretical Physics)