Time to elevate academies to national schools

By Ashford Kimani

With the 2012 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination results now out, names of pupils from academies will dominate the top positions.

This is so because private academies take their work very seriously.

The proprietors of these schools have invested heavily in learning facilities thus the good results they post are fruits of their hard labour.

Private academies insist on professionalism and teachers there have better work ethics compared to their public schools counterparts. Quite a number of private schools also operate reward schemes for teachers to recognise their hard work.

This provides them with extra motivation to take a personal interest in the progress of their students and ensure they do well.

Strong commitment

It is no wonder therefore that the results they post are a confirmation of their commitment towards teaching.

As a matter of fact 80 per cent of the students in our national schools come from private primary schools. This trend continues up to the university and consequently into the labour market.

Not all are good

It is thus not easy to underrate the contribution of academies in our country. And so our Government should now recognize the contribution made by these academies and consider some of them whenever they are elevating schools to national status.

However, this should not be taken to mean all academies are performing. No.

Some academies are struggling with their own share of their problems like many public schools are. Others are worse than our public schools.

Their conditions of learning are deplorable to say the least. Such academies have sprang up in areas where the Government’s Free Primary Education programme is having little impact, to fill up the vacuum the Government has created.

Recently, the Government elevated some 30 public secondary schools to national status. This brings the total number of national schools to 78. This is a step in the right direction. Plans are in the pipeline to make sure that every county has at least two national schools.

However the Government has not considered even one private secondary school for elevation to national status. Some private schools have better learning facilities than the ones in the newly elevated public secondary schools.

Scavenging for names

Secondly, private schools are complementing the Government’s effort in providing universal secondary education.

As such the Government needs to recognize their input and consider elevating some private secondary schools to national status.

Not all academies are high cost as many people assume. The Ministry of Education should also consider allowing KCPE candidates to choose private national schools the way they do with public schools.

As it is currently, private schools are left ‘scavenging’ for Form Ones to admit to their schools after public school selections are done.

Thus a majority of private schools ends up not having homogenous classes because they admit students from both extremes.

We should go the higher education way where the new Commission for Higher Education takes care of both public and private universities as opposed to the Joint Admissions Board that only catered for public universities.

I do not understand why academies are punished yet majority of students who go to the national schools come from them!

This gesture would go a long way towards motivating proprietors of these academies to continue investing in education. It will also ensure there is fair competition between private and public secondary schools.

It is only in categorization and Form One selection where academies are discriminated against. 

The writer teaches English and Literature at a private school in Nairobi County.