That Kenya’s education system is on an inevitable
path of calamitous ruin. Between 50-65 percent of teachers in both private and public
schools don’t have the basic reading and math skills required to teach grade
four pupils. Teachers are absent half of the time they are required to teach. Public universities are short of professors,
woefully underfunded and staggered by the winds of mediocrity.
Successive reports by Uwezo, an education
advocacy organization, have shown that our children are not learning. One in five children in primary seven do not have
primary two competency levels in reading and numeracy.
Our universities lack an overarching purpose
for undergraduate education and there is no vision of the attributes of a
university graduate. Students have no capacity for critical thinking,
analytical and moral reasoning, lack writing, speaking and quantitative skills.
About 51 percent of students graduating from our universities lack basic and
technical skills needed in the job market. Last year the Judges and Magistrates Vetting Board fired nine
magistrates who lacked mastery of basic skills in English language and could
not write judgments supported by sound legal analysis and reasoning.
We have turned primary and secondary schools
into grade factories. We have put a price on grades and national examinations
are no longer reliable measures of students’ ability. A recent survey on ethics
and integrity among high school students revealed that a majority of students
would do anything, including cheating, to pass their KCSE examinations.
In our universities, grades can be
negotiated and paid for in kind or in cash. Students enrolled in part-time
postgraduate programs have help on tap to deal with the messy inconvenience of
term papers, research, data analysis and dissertation writing. Prominent
politicians are enrolled in undergraduate, masters and PhD programs and
graduate in record time even without attending classes. Lecturers are
indifferent to whether students learn anything. Unspeakable levels of tribalism undermine merit and integrity in hiring
of faculty hence, there is a rising tide of mediocrity in our universities. The intellectual, ethical and moral collapse
of our universities is nearly complete.
The most durable
and dependable capital we have is not oil or gas or wildlife. Moreover, our
capacity to compete in a knowledge based globalized economy does not depend solely
on the density of paved roads or length of railway or coverage of electric
power grid. The education, training and skills we offer our children – the
quality of human capital – will determine our place in the league table of
nations.
The silly season of
politics is here because the general elections will be held next year. The
deplorable state of our education will not be a hot button issue in 2017. The
election will be fought on the calculus of ethnic alliances and promissory pork
for ethnic head chefs.
Our education, the
fountain of the inheritance for our children, is on a path of calamitous ruin,
and we can only ignore it at our individual and collective peril. Do we have the
courage to act?
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