By Ken Ramani
Now that the dust raised since the release of the 2008 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination results has settled down, it is important that we look at the role of academies in our education system.
Although the academies are barely 10 per cent of the primary schools, their candidates secured slightly more than 60 per cent of places in the best national and provincial secondary schools.
Academies outperform public schools in national exams due to myriad reasons. They include low pupil numbers, best facilities, highly motivated teachers and even under-table dealings.
Like them or hate them, academies are a necessary evil that we must learn to live with.
The Government that has always encouraged investors to help in increasing learning opportunities. Due to limited resources, the Government realised it had no capacity to construct enough schools as well as employ adequate teachers.
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As businesses, some of the private schools genuinely work hard to excel and in the process stay in business. There is nothing wrong with working hard. What is not right is the unethical methods used by some of these academies to post good results and in the end their candidates take the lion’s share of places in good national and provincial schools.
SCOUTING AND POACHING
For instance, some of them send agents around scouting and poaching bright candidates from deprived public institutions by charging their parents concessionary fees or even offering ‘scholarships’.
Just like some public institutions, the academies also encourage teachers to connive with candidates to cheat in examinations. The private investors also establish decoy schools for the bright and the not…so…bright candidates to be used mainly for examinations, among other unethical practices.
Ever wondered why there are so many private primary schools but very few good private secondary schools? Is there more money to be made at the primary level compared to secondary? Or does it mean that drilling and other questionable methods used in making candidates pass with good grades at KCPE are impossible to replicate at KCSE?
It is imperative to remember that given a choice, many of us will not wish to take our children to overcrowded schools with leaking roofs and poor sanitation facilities. We will not like a situation where our children are taught by "de-motivated" teachers who come to school sweating in gumboots after working in their nearby farms to make ends meet.
As an answer to the domination by the private academies, the argument was that the public academies would offer a lifeline to bright children from deprived families. I am not sure if the intention still exists and if indeed the academies will be constructed given the ever-increasing number of districts.