The fabric of the nations runs on the education of its people

By Kanyi Gioko

The current announcement of a task force to review the education needs of Kenya is welcome and timely. I must thank the president for giving career educationists a platform to shape their profession. Education in Kenya has transformed since the early 60s. Let us take a sneak peek into this, shall we? First, we have the Omondi commission 1964, which sought to reform the education system to make it responsive to the needs of the country by then, which created the 7-4-2-3 system of education, i.e., seven years of primary, four years of secondary, two years of secondary education and three years of university education. This was followed by the Giachetti Report 1976, which focused on redefining Kenya’s educational policies and objectives, considering national unity and the Kenyan people’s economic, social, and cultural aspirations. Its primary outcome was the introduction of ‘Harambee schools’ and led to the establishment of the Kenya Institute of Education, currently the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development. 

In 1981 the education area underwent another radical shift spearheaded by the Mackay report that advocated for the removal of the advanced A level of secondary education and the expansion of other post-secondary training institutions. This brought about the 8-4-4 system of education. The focus of this shift was to create a holistic learner who could interact with the world and make an independent, honest living out of their skills. It also reemphasized the need to acquire technical and vocational education and training. Finally, in 1988 there were widespread policy shifts that included the parents and communities in the cost of education by introducing cost sharing as a government policy. The Kamunge Report proposed this, probably the beginning of the many woes facing education today. 

Pitfalls

As the task force embarks on this journey, they need to focus on a few areas that have remained a pain in the neck of the education sector. 

Expensive schooling is slowly but surely transforming education into an elitist adventure. In the years of yore when the Kenya Education Equipment Scheme worked, schooling was a breeze, all requirements were provided to all pupils, and this ensured equity and high percentage retention. There we sporadic cases of children missing school, and where this happened, the administrators followed up on the individual cases to ensure all children went to school. The onset of cost-sharing 

Secondly, apart from the Koech Report of 1999, which was not adopted after being deemed expensive, we have never had a review of the previous reports’ objectives, done an achievement analysis on them to see what works and does work, and come up with a data-based decision on how to go forward. There is always the danger of embarking on changes that may erode the existing gains and positives from the blanket condemnation approach. Are there good things we can borrow from the past? Methodologies, practices, resources, etc.? Do we always have to start from scratch? Must we have now instead of improved?   

Thirdly, we must be conscious of the capitalist buccaneers hanging on the wings awaiting to tap into the billions allocated to education annually. These types tend to push the profit agenda subtly hidden under sweet vocabularies such as partnerships, skills transfer, and collaboration, to name but three. The symptoms of such toxic unions include but are not limited to opting for expensive software/resources. At the same time, more viable options are available on the open-source platforms, and more importantly, even the so-called first world is thriving on free and open-source software. 

Fourthly, education is mind and character programming. The most dangerous thing that any patriotic nation can do is to allow foreign interests to dictate what you feed the growing minds. As a scholar, I have always faced the herculean hurdle of being deemed out of touch with knowledge because I needed to quote specific names from some regions. We must ensure that we keep our children and their children from the school of thought where the best things must be imported. This statement is both literally and figuratively; the outputs of our education system must be able to inculcate self-determination, knowledge-seeking, adventurous and experimental individuals who are ready to be productive and come up with both soft and hard solutions for our unique needs as a country. While at it, these solutions should be competitive enough to get an international footprint. 

Lastly, engage teachers at all levels, from Early Child Development (ECD) to the Postgraduate level, to be grounded in all our aspirations and insulate ourselves against coming up with discordant policies. Finally, engage the communities and parents from across the country; a Wanjiku buy-in is not negotiable and must be built into the foundations of whatever creature we will birth with this new task force. This can be achieved through using vernacular or the language of the focus area when collecting data to connect with the citizen at the heart level. Unfortunately, English and, to some extent, Kiswahili tend to discriminate and alienate quite a majority of the population. 

While we embark on this reform journey, it may help to share that two rather silent reports hardly get the attention they deserve, namely Prof Odhiambo’s report of 2012 and Prof Laban Ayiro’s report of 2018. What was in these critical reports that the former more or less culminated into the current Competency-based Curriculum (CBC)? At the same time, the latter made some critical suggested improvements on the same. Rome was never built in a day, but they have yet to start new Roman foundations worldwide; they built on the existing ones.  

Mr. Gioko, a career educationist, researcher, and digital content and curriculum developer, comments on topical issues