School heads poke holes in education system

Mombasa, Kenya: Primary schools heads Sunday poked holes in the education system ahead of their six-day annual conference that starts Monday in Mombasa.

Over 10,000 primary schools heads have converged at Sheikh Zayed Children Centre in Mombasa to discuss the standards of education and particularly the impact of exam-oriented education system on pupils.

Sunday, Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association (Kepsha) officials said the country’s education system was not transmitting value to learners and called for review of the school curriculum.

“It will be better that we have students who get a mean score of C (plus) instead of producing students who lack creativity and moral value,” said Kepsha chairman Joseph Karuga.

The conference will be officially opened Tuesday by Deputy President William Ruto.

Education experts in the country have over the years said the country’s education system had turned to be exam-oriented thereby stifling creativity.

“There is need for the focus to shift from access to education to quality education standards that does not focus on examinations only,” said Dziyai Mutumbuka, the chairman of Learning Matrics Task Force (LMTF) during a Press conference in Mombasa Sunday.

LMTF technical leader Kate Anderson Simon said Kenya was among the few countries the organisation had chosen to assist in dealing with problems facing education system.

The conference in Mombasa also comes at a time primary schools continue to complain over inadequate funding and the slow pace the Government was disbursing funds.

Karuga Sunday said many schools received this term’s 30 per cent allocation from the Government just when they were about to close for end term.

Currently, the Government allocates Sh9,000 per pupil for the whole of primary education, translating to Sh1,500 per year and the teachers say that the meagre allocation had hampered their efforts to offer quality education.