Education System In Kenya Today Differs

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Kinoti Gatobu

The award was based on the contribution I had made to Kenya?s education through education Bills and motions I had moved in Parliament and the progress in education in my Buuri constituency, which for the second year running, was the most improved in Meru County.

While I draw lots of joy and gratitude in this award, I am worried of the situation in the education sector in Kenya. For many years, education has been the ladder that helped children from poor families ascend from poverty to prosperity. Over time, this equalisation effect of education is being eroded and the ladder is being cut shorter and shorter.

Taking a practical example of my own situation, my ancestral village is Ntumburi in Buuri, Meru. In lower primary, I used to be an average pupil in terms of academic performance. The turning point was when I made my first visit to Nairobi in 1997 as part of a village delegation to welcome an engineer who was landing at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport from Britain where he had been pursuing a masters degree.

The engineer was a native of Ntumburi and had studied at Ntumburi Primary, then to Alliance High School and University of Nairobi where he attained First Class honours in Civil Engineering, and was given a scholarship to further his studies in Britain.

I was greatly inspired that a son of a poor old man from Ntumburi could excel that much. It is from then that my academic performance improved.

However, the situation today is completely different. For many years now, no child from Ntumburi Primary School has made it to Alliance High School or any other top performing national school. The rags to riches story of the Ntumburi boy turned engineer may never recur for modern day children unless something is urgently done.

If an education system cannot avail enough opportunities for a nation?s children to rise from their challenging backgrounds, then the nation is in a mess. This is how we got into the mess: In the 1970s and 80s education was fairly cheap and within reach of most Kenyans.

More importantly, the playing field was level, so that any child from a poor background who went to a public primary school and scored good marks would easily gain entry into a national secondary school or a high ranking provincial school.

Secondary school was also cheap and many parents could afford to pay for their children. In the 1990s, the grand growth of private primary schools started. With more resources and better supervision by their owners, private schools started performing much better than public schools, hence, the best secondary schools in Kenya now began to admit majority of their students from private schools.

Over the years, the opportunities for a child from a public primary school joining a top performing secondary school fell lower and lower. The same trend continued to universities. While the ideal situation should be that anyone who scored grade C+ in KCSE should gain direct Joint Admissions Board entry into the university, limited expansion of public universities infrastructure saw the admission grade increase to B plain.

But for the rich, opportunities were still available: With a C+, one could be admitted into the university through the self-sponsored programme, commonly known as the parallel programme. Slowly but surely, Kenya?s education system was skewed to disadvantage the poor.

In recent years, some moves have been made to correct this injustice. Key among these moves was the free primary education, partial free secondary education, preferential admission of children from public schools to national schools, scrapping of KCPE and KCSE examination fees, increase of Free Primary Education funds by 30 per cent and many others.

It, however, seems to be a case of one step forward and one step backward. While free primary funds have been increased, VAT was, for the first time, in Kenya?s history imposed on text books and other vital education materials, thereby increasing their prices.

While Free Primary Education has seen a sharp increase in primary school enrollment, quality of education has fallen so low that chances of success of children in these schools are very slim. Under staffing is a major challenge in these public schools.

Just one month into 2015, children in public schools have already lost close to 100 lessons owing to teachers? strike.? Meanwhile, even after task force reports and threats from ministry officials, several secondary school heads have not complied to the maximum fees guidelines, therefore making it difficult for children from poor families to afford secondary education in leading schools.

That is how Kenya?s education system ends up frustrating children from poor backgrounds. When the system was a bit fair, the village of Ntumburi could produce engineers, accountants, managers, teachers, and doctors. In a biased education system, how many would-be professionals could we be losing?

By Kinoti Gatobu, The Standard

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