Ego threatens positive education reforms

In an interactive session with journalists recently, Mr Wilson Sossion expressed his views on what stand the Kenya National Union of Teachers ought to have taken in regard to changes made to the third school term by Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i. It was done with such haughtiness many people must have felt bemused.

While it would be facetious for me to challenge his right to express his position on the matter, it is the manner of doing so that baffles. Mr Sossion’s deportment suggests a sense of entitlement to matters of education and gives the impression he is the fulcrum on which such matters revolve.

Though I may not sequence what he said verbatim, it went something like: “Yes, Mr Nzili represented the Kenya National Union of Teachers but everybody knows who the spokesperson of Knut is. Even if I sent all the head teachers and they all agreed with the minister, as the Secretary General, I still have the right to ‘karabati’ (fix) if I feel something is not right.” I couldn’t believe the cheek of it.

Lampooning head teachers as incompetent people who wouldn’t know what is good for them is injudicious. That is an implied insult that should be retracted. Surely, is Mr Sossion’s intelligence superior to the collective intelligence of head teachers? I recall his attitude last year on the matter of medical insurance for teachers and the pompous instructions he issued. I recall his daring comportment against the Government when teachers demanded a fair pay rise of between 50 and 60 per cent as granted by the Industrial Court.

He dared the Salaries and Remuneration Commission and swore no teacher would sign a performance contract. Sadly, all the threats and swearing at the Government ended up on the rocks and teachers are worse for it. I am amused the guy is still in the ring, throwing harmless punches. Despite exam cheating having become a yearly ritual, I do not recall a time when the Knut leadership ever vehemently rounded on the vice to drive it out of town. Their attention has at best been perfunctory and limited to a reaction on the day examination results are announced. Beyond that, it is business as usual.

Today, simply because Dr Matiang’i has outlined measures to curb exam cheating, Mr Sossion is telling us that the vice is restricted to the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) and the security agencies involved in the safeguarding of the material prior to distribution. Yes, he has a point, but isn’t it because Matiang’i took cognisance of this salient fact that he disbanded KNEC and appointed a new board sometime back? Common sense dictates that the minister had to escalate to the next level.

Even while schools compete to better their performance and the temptation to cut corners may be strong, understandably, some parents with means but the appreciation their sons or daughters are not academically endowed cannot resist the urge to boost them.

I understood the Cabinet Secretary perfectly well when he decried the things that sometimes happen during prayer day visits. Mention of aunties and all those other fellows was an indirect allusion to some of the weird things that actually happen when assorted relatives meet on prayer days.

Days before exams last year, there were reported cases of students suddenly going blind, falling sick and even running mad. Sceptical? You can draw your own conclusions.

I don’t quite understand what the excitement over visiting day is all about. It adds no value and the students have all the time to be with parents and relatives after the exams. Candidates need time and fewer distractions, including goodies anticipation, in third term to catch up with what they may have missed.

We should not lose sight of the fact that there are students from very humble backgrounds and orphans who, more often, are made to psychologically feel inferior or worthless from a lack of ‘shopping’ and close family embrace on such days.

Prayer is a continuous exercise and more of an individual thing. Thus, it really doesn’t matter much if it is held in second term or third term. And if the prayer day celebrations aren’t just some sort of parade, how come schools don’t hold thanks giving prayers after the results are out; the way politicians do once they have gorged themselves?

A lazy student will not pass exams on the strength of prayer at the last minute. Now, on the matter of cheating, both day and boarding schools get involved, but it is more likely to happen in boarding than in day schools. It is pointless belabouring the point; a simple search will show that the biggest culprits, so far, are boarding schools.