Today’s parents have abdicated their role of raising children and that is the biggest problem the education sector is faces, Education CS George Magoha has said.
Speaking to primary school head teachers at their annual conference in Mombasa on Tuesday, Magoha said the role of parents in raising children has dropped by almost 80 per cent.
“Parents are behaving like animals. They produce children and leave them to be brought up by other people. They cannot teach them to wash their clothes, cook, clean the house or do any other chores,” the CS said.
This means the role is most often left to teachers at primary schools and house helps.
“I violently disagree with this kind of upbringing,” Magoha said.
Teachers have in the past complained of extra work, with some forced to teach the children things they ought to have been taught at home by parents, like making the bed and taking dishes to the right place after eating.
The CS said the kind of upbringing today’s parents give their children does not correspond to the expectations they have of them.
Parents expect their children to score high marks without providing the foundation for the high marks expected, he said, adding that the pressure on learners during exams sometimes leads them to commit suicide when they score low marks.
“When a child scores 250 or even 200 marks it is good. Let us accept what we have and plan to improve on it.
"If somebody thinks it is too low, that is their own problem,” Magoha said.
He said children who score as low as 190 marks in exams have something to offer.
“Those are just marks. The university that is life is still ahead of them."
He said this is part of the problems that the Competence Based Curriculum was meant to remedy.
He noted that though the CBC is not yet perfect, it is a start and that the challenges being experienced will be sorted out with time.
“Re-skilling of children is expensive. Nobody will ever be ready for something,” he noted.
The former Kenya National Examination Council chair hailed President Uhuru Kenyatta for "his bravery" to introduce the CBC.
Edited by R.Wamochie
