We read mischief in plot to kick out Kaimenyi

Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi took over the Ministry of Education when it was already undertaking wide-ranging reforms to align education and training to meet changing aspirations of Kenyans.

His two predecessors - the late Education minister and Makueni Senator Mutula Kilonzo and the Higher Education, Science and Technology minister Margaret Kamar - had, by the time the 10th Parliament wound up, steered the passage of a number of laws on education. The laws were designed to address the challenges affecting the delivery of education and training in the country in terms of access, quality, equity and relevance.

The laws were enacted to meet the imperatives of the Constitution, Vision 2030, the knowledge economy and globalisation of the economy. The education policy makers took into account the international commitments Kenya is signatory to—notably Education For All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The immediate challenge Prof Kaimenyi faced was to transmute the legislations into policies. This entailed the formulation of regulations to operationalise the various Acts of Parliament his predecessors had developed and had Parliament enact. Kaimenyi embarked on his mandate with patience and courage. The regulations to operationalise the laws, and even the policies arising thereof require consultations with relevant stakeholders.

Embedded in the educational laws that Prof Kaimenyi is to operationalise is radical thinking that should ultimately transform education and training in the country. The thinking is that the Government must introduce a new education paradigm to prepare students for success in a knowledge economy. In a knowledge economy, intellectual capital is the nation's wealth.

But intellectual capital is not just about a person's mental or intellectual capability. It also embodies other equally important aspects that make up a whole person. The education system in a knowledge economy should provide a balanced and well-rounded education that can develop every individual morally, intellectually, physically, socially and aesthetically so that his or her full potential can be realised.

The new thinking about what Education should do is inconsistent with the way the country has managed education and the institutions that provide education services. Prof Kaimenyi has repeatedly talked about the wastage of the massive resources the Government is pumping into basic Education through the Free Primary Education and Free Day Education Programmes, to say nothing of the massive amount of money injected into secondary schools by parents through payment of school fees for their children.

The Basic Education Regulations, 2015, which have been the subject of contention between the Kenya National Union of Teachers and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET), aim at creating an environment in which effective teaching and learning can be conducted more effectively and efficiently than has been the case.

The knowledge economy requires the innate talents and abilities of learners to be identified and once identified, nurtured or developed meticulously. Methodical teaching and learning cannot take place in the current organisation of school programmes where teachers teach endlessly and without allowing learners' room to rest and to do their own preps as was done in the 1980s and earlier.

The current teaching practices are geared towards examinations and extorting money from parents so as to ostensibly motivate teachers. The real aim is to drill students and then extract money from parents - practices that Prof Kaimenyi wants to stop through the implementation of the Basic Education Regulations.

Teacher organisations such as KNUT and the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA), Kenya Private Schools Association are opposed to the initiatives the CS is undertaking. The ban on ranking annoyed these bodies. They had virtually commercialised the announcement of results. It was more about advertising schools and less about celebrating educational achievement. Under the policy of let the "fittest survive", schools forced students to repeat classes, particularly Standard Seven and Form Three.

The sum total of the actions that Prof Kaimenyi has taken is threatening the comfort zone of some groups of people who are unhappy with him. They have discreetly been controlling educational policies to the detriment of effective teaching and learning and to the detriment of learners with learning and behavioral difficulties.

Prof Kaimenyi is pitching for regulation of education to protect the best interests of children in general, and those with learning difficulties in particular. He is pitching for prudent and accountable management of school resources.

He is rooting for learning, for an education that goes beyond grades and school. He is rooting for an education regime where children from poor backgrounds can learn in the best schools without dropping out because of astronomical school fees charged.

Prof Kaimenyi wants to create an environment in which schools help build the navigational skills of learners to cope with a changing job and workplace landscape. A laissez faire approach to education cannot serve the rising expectations and aspirations of this country. This is what lies behind the policy actions the Ministry of Education is taking.

Clearly the Motion to impeach Prof Kaimenyi aims at punishing a man who has been brave and visionary enough to identify and deal with what ails the education sector—teacher lethargy, commercialisation of education and examinations, financial impropriety, inefficiencies and an ineffective education style.

Conscientious legislators must not allow impunity in education to carry the day.