Kenya’s education system is churning out ‘educated’ zombies

I once heard a story of a man who was fighting a fire that was razing his hut. As he battled the flames, a rat shot out of the burning hut. On seeing the rat, he let out a war cry that must have unnerved the gods.

Angry at the rodent that had been eating his grains; he took off after it at the speed of light. Rodents are adept at getting lost in grass and fences and the man’s pursuit was in vain. On turning back to the critical mission of saving his hut, it had been consumed by fire.

The Government is behaving like that man in regard to education.

Our foray into the 8-4-4 system and later the introduction of free primary and secondary education has encountered many challenges. While ‘everybody’ agrees that the curriculum needs fixing, no one is ready to confront the matter.

Beasts of burden

Meanwhile, our kids are forced to haul book loads only beasts of burden can manage. Primary school kids read up to the hours associated with night runners and witches. The introduction of free primary education sounded the death knell on schools like Kibera’s Olympic and Eastland’s Harambee.

Such performed quite well and contributed a fair share of their graduates to national schools. Today, thanks to free primary education, the performance of these schools has been dimmed. Indeed, parents who are financially able prefer private academies where classes are less crowded.

On the other hand, most good day secondary schools which catered for the children of the poor have been turned into boarding institutions, in the relentless pursuit of a good mean grade. In Nairobi County, schools like upper Hill, Ofafa Jericho, Aquinas, Ngara Girls, Pumwani Boys and Highway have turned boarding.

This is replicated across the country. Those unable to pay boarding fees are shown the door. The students end up either in recently built, untested CDF schools or on the streets.

Our exam oriented system doesn’t equip learners with critical social values and skills for life. Candidates are required to remember everything they learnt over a period of eight or four years within two hours. The consequences are evident throughout the country: Youths who have been branded failures idle away at shopping centres cheeks bursting with foliage (muguka).

Others are perpetually high on cheap alcoholic concoctions laced with morgue chemicals as their wives turn in their beds wondering whether they married eunuchs. Murang’a County is not the only county that requires police assistance in searching students’ bags for alcohol and related intoxicants on opening day.

We are also seeing men wearing their trousers around their knees in the name of sagging. Only they know what prevents the innocent piece of fabric from dropping to the ground. The once hallowed university grounds have degenerated into dens where students hatch kidnap missions, as happened in Eldoret recently.

During student leadership elections, ‘our intellectuals’ are apparently persuaded more by tribe than grey matter. Who killed student idealism? We must get scared when the dreams of most boys in Nairobi’s Eastlands are to become a ‘pilot’ of Umoinner matatus and break traffic rules.

Implement policies

Our leaders hardly take their kids to public primary schools and only patronise select public secondaries. Yet, they make and implement policies on public education. If that isn’t crazy, please tell me what is.

Instead of wasting tax payer’s money on committees which come up with recommendations that teachers should work like the donkeys of Limuru, the Government should first deal with curriculum quality, relevance and content. Oblivious to the risk of losing an entire generation, our leaders are busy trading base insults at public barazas over referendum matters.