Ministry of Education Must Take Charge
By John Harrington Ndeta
Nairobi, Kenya
09/04/2008
This week marked the beginning of the third term in the Kenyan academic calendar and it is  eagerly waited  especially so, because the examination classes, standard 8 and form four sit for their national exams and are awarded certificates to show that they have graduated from the level of education specified.

Several things have preceded the opening of schools for third term.

First  is the unresolved issue of student strikes across the country. A special committee was hurriedly constituted in the by Minster for education Prof Sam Ongeri in the wake of school strikes in second term.

Kenyans needed an answer to the wave of strike and up to now, there is no clear report on this issue. What happened? Did Hon Ongeri get the report from his task force? What of the parliamentary committee on education. Public funds were used to sponsor members of the committee to go around the country trying to establish the cause of the unprecedented school strikes.

Hon Koech and his team have neither given a report nor are their findings and recommendations open to education stake holders particularly the parents.

This issue ought to be resolved once and for all if we wanted to avert a recurrence of what was witnessed in the second term.

Second is the issue of vacation tuition. The Ministry of education was reported to have made vacation tuition illegal in all public and private schools. Protestations were abundant during the August vacation with parents, teachers and Ministry of education officials divided on the issue. The Ministry of education was seen to flex on the issue when Prof Ongeri said that his Ministry was not opposed to extra learning for slow learners.

But where do you draw the distinction? In any case, you may have a school where only one student makes it to grade B. This is conversely proportional to better performing schools where all students except one gets below grade B. It is sarcastic that such schools are the ones which have a more elaborate system for extra teaching in order to complete the syllabus in time and embark on polishing the candidates.

Which child between the high achievers and low achievers doesn’t want to attend tuition? It is my considered opinion that  slow and lazy learners who are crooks and undisciplined, will be more opposed to extra days in school and learning than the bright straightforward and disciplined ones.

The third crucial factor for the education sector is the banning of Mock exams. The rationale behind banning of Provincial and District mocks was lopsided. Over time, this exam has been used to gauge the student’s preparedness for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).

The examiners who set and mark the National exams are very handy in the Mock exams. These are not many and hence, there predictions and guidance in the Mocks guide the entire candidate lot preparing for the final exams. In the absence of this, few schools which produce national examiners will be advantaged.

The so called Continuous Assessments Test (CATs) are most irregular in comparison to the mocks in gauging the candidates. It is unfortunate that while some schools will be groping in darkness as they try touch on every black CAT (ever tried to look for a black cat in darkness) the others will be comfortably teaching their students the real exam as set by their teachers.

Such a move can’t be any further from imbalance compared to the commercialization of mock exams raised by the ministry of education. Surely who is not using money to succeed? Even at the universities have parallel degree programmes making parents’ poorer than never before. May be the intention is to make many fail at KCSE and join the parallel programme!

Last but not least, the government through the Ministry of education should be more genuine with the issue of free education. As much as we can boast of free Primary and secondary education as a country, our standards are wanting. We can’t afford to compromise on quality for quantity.

If many of us are going to go through the education system half baked because of lack of manpower and facilities, then the free education policy ought to be reviewed. It is in the media domain that many secondary schools have not fully received money from government meant for second term. With the high inflation levels reported in the country, this is not the term where the government can delay in disbursement of funds to schools.

Prof Ongeri should move with speed to not just reassure schools of these funds but deposit it to school accounts. This will help many schools which historically experience serious financial crunch in the third term of every year.

Edited By Peter Gaitho for AjabuAfrica.com

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