Dr. Laban Ayiro
As we grapple with what will constitute the appropriate education for our country, the temptation of embracing technology comes to the fore.
However, technology, by itself â no matter how much we add â will not move our learners into the 21st Century.
Nor will rearranging our the 8-4-4 system or truncating the current amorphous curriculum for the ECDE, primary, secondary and tertiary levels, as developed by the Kenya Institute of Education.
If we want to see a positive, constructive and productive education system that will give birth to functional citizens for our country, we are focusing in the wrong place.
21st century pedagogy
The only attribute that will move our education into the 21st Century is changing our teaching methods, and what we teach in classrooms: I am advocating that we need 21st Century pedagogy, along with 21st Century curriculum.
In my article last year titled Reforming our Education system in the 21st Century must be Evidence Based, I made the case that our education reform initiatives have so far been trying to marry systems of the last century with technological infusion.
Although this approach may, in fact raise the number of Aâs in national examinations, or even get more students to meet public university entry requirements, it will certainly not prepare our youth for todayâs expectations.
One of the reasons we struggle so hard to raise examination scores, which at times defeat the statistical theorems such the normal distribution curve ( a school raising for example 65 Aâs from a class of 72 students! ), and also see so many dropouts( too much pressure to craft an attractive mean for the school at whatever cost), is that our pedagogy â how we teach â is both outdated and out of sync with todayâs needs.
Today, the pedagogy in most classrooms still consists mostly of âtellingâ, writing notes and testing that is aligned to the setting of the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec).
This approach results in passive learners and âcuriosityâ has literally been edged out of the Kenyan classroom, yet it is an indispensable attribute of meaningful learning.
