The new government is now fully in place. Things are moving too fast for comfort and for reasonable logic to follow and reason things out. While everyone is fighting the Finance Bill, which is meant to put a straw in all our pockets, another national asset is slowly being chipped away by invisible forces possibly to its slow and sure demise—our robust education system.
Education is what builds nations, be it formal, informal, non-formal or unintended. It builds characters, skills, values, competence and people who make great nations. National educational institutions are the pillars on which we build the core bricks that hold the nation together. They give the nation a brand and a package called organised education.
Organised education refers to the formalised system of providing structured learning experiences to individuals within a society. Organised education is important and advantageous as it provides access to knowledge and information, equal opportunities, assured personal development, economic growth and productivity, social cohesion and citizenship, health and well-being, cultural preservation and advancement, promoting social harmony and intercultural understanding, among other values.
While organised education offers numerous advantages, it is essential to ensure equitable access, quality instruction and continuous improvement in educational systems to maximise its benefits for individuals and societies.
Our Educational foundation is under great pressure, it is cracking, and the pillars are giving in day by day, one minute crack at a time. The biggest mistake we made as Kenyans is to allow parochial politicians to hijack the education narrative as opposed to giving our very renowned educationists a lead say.
Our education specialists are busy building and consulting for other countries that have seen the value and tapped into our highly qualified brothers and sisters as we keep busy following political shenanigans that are heading us south.
Let me dig into the crux of the matter. Funding is key for any programme to stay afloat and meet its expectations. For a matter as crucial as national education, being underfunded and running on empty for the better part is a national shame and an indictment of how we are ready to ignore our foundational strength and go for a day-to-day survival existence.
Does the head of the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association need to keep crying out for funds to be released year in and year out? With the 100 per cent transition, schools are bursting at the seams, classrooms are choking for lack of space and dormitories have transformed into horizontal sliding rest spaces that are shoulder-to-shoulder tight.
There is no room to interact with learners in the class, no room to move or exhale. Despite this induced population explosion, the politicians find it hard to increase the capitation to expand school infrastructure, employ more teachers and provide a conducive learning environment for our learners.
Populism has taken centre stage as the government moves in with directives that are out of this world. How do you expect a principal to maintain more than 1,000 students in school without capital? How do you enforce the 'strictly no school stoppage for fees collection' order, and always keep them in school?
What will the learners eat? Who will pay for the utilities? What does a principal do when the Local Purchase Orders are no longer honoured for pilling up debts? Granted, when parents paid fees for their children, life was a lot better, and things moved quite smoothly albeit with a separate but manageable set of challenges. This may be a point to reconsider.
At the national level, things are not fairing any better. Critical national research and education bodies are on their knees. Universities are a shadow of their former gigantic selves. National core and critical bodies such as the Kenya National Examinations Council and the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, to name but two, are being watered down and critical roles are thrown to pseudo entities with questionable abilities to handle critical national processes.
Let me not even get started on the issue of funding for these towers of research and learning. It’s a pity that such crucial entities that control the heartbeat of the national education narrative are not given adequate funding to go with the rising number of clientele they serve on a year-to-year basis. It is even sad that they mostly must walk bowl in hand just like their sister KESSHA.
Government institutions play a crucial role in society and offer many advantages that contribute to the functioning and well-being of a nation. We are living in the 21st century where the world has converged into one great village. How well can we market a Kenyan engineer in the fast-moving world holding a certificate bearing a name such as 'Kamune Technical Institute' as opposed to Kenya National Examinations Council?
This is just a live example, my people of Kiharu I love you. We are sacrificing a nation at the altar of silence and rushed politics as opposed to logical perspectives. Good ideas take time to be nurtured and to be implemented.
The overall interests of a nation must be put into perspective and long-term projections made to give a possible value add to all as a people. A good idea that is rushed is as good as a very bad and dangerous one. It is not right to use a generation as an experiment as we make mistakes day by day. Learners are suffering, our systems are giving in.
Let us reflect on all the points that are ailing us, let us allow systems that are robust and working to run and not attempt to fix them with political misdiagnosis. This fixing is messing everyone up while people are busy trying to make ends meet to notice the ship is listing too fast.
National educational bodies, from early childhood centres to top research entities, are important assets and their effectiveness can vary depending on factors such as the quality of governance, transparency and the ability to adapt to changing needs and challenges. Let us support them all in all the ways that we can.
Career educationist, researcher, digital content and curriculum developer
