Taskforce failed to justify need for change

The education taskforce that compiled and handed over to minister for Education a 340-page report late last month, grossly failed its mandate as contained in a late January Kenya Gazette notice.

The team was mandated to review the education, training and research sector to conform to the Constitution and also review the relevance and responsiveness of the curriculum to Vision 2030.

The taskforce was supposed to submit to the minister four key outputs: A comprehensive report, a proposed sessional paper, a draft educational Bill and a Cabinet memorandum and policy brief. However, only a taskforce report was passed on to minister last month. How comprehensive the report was is entirely a different issue.

Nevertheless, very reliable sources from the team and at ministry headquarters intimate the team faced a host of hurdles and that the political will to reform the sector was not guaranteed during the 12 months of their engagement.

There are many strategic issues of importance that are captured in the report which the taskforce did very well in bringing them up. However, that is the furthest the taskforce went — isolating issues. It effectively failed to give serious strategic thought on why the proposed direction needs to be embraced.

It is only fair that when you propose a paradigm shift in a system, you have to develop a watertight rationale to anchor the proposal. The taskforce fails to give any plausible rationale for nearly all the changes they are proposing and the nation must fear the same problems bedevilling the 8-4-4 system are going to haunt the current and future generations if these quasi-formulated proposals are implemented.

Other weaknesses

Three issues stand out.

First, the taskforce proposes we abandon the 8-4-4 system and embrace 2-6-6-3 system that mirrors that of Singapore. The taskforce argues the current system is weak since it lacks the pre-school cycle, promotes unhealthy completion, lacks in harmony as compared to other East African countries, among other weaknesses.

However, the team fails to draw a picture on how the Singapore model they fancy is anchored and operationalised to yield the greatest quality of education in the world. They dwell on what would pass as administrative issues and only nibble at the core of the matter.

The team needed to audit the 8-4-4 system, isolate the philosophy and spirit behind its establishment without the prejudice and links to former President Moi in relation to implementation practice, and the national development needs. The audit would have given a solid rationale on why in providing education the way we are doing, under the 8-4-4 system, we are unlikely to move closer to attainment of Vision 2030.

Again, the taskforce should have answered the question of: Is 8-4-4 as a system incompatible with our development needs or it is the unco-ordinated and incremental implementation approach adopted that has failed to unleash the potential of the system?

Secondly, the taskforce failed to advice the nation on how it envisages the structuring and management of the education sector at the national and county levels. This needed to form a major component of their job since the Constitution introduces new levels of governance yet the obligation to provide basic education remains a function of the central government. The mere mention of delegation of roles and responsibilities does not suffice for the actual implementation and realisation of this inalienable right.

Thirdly, the question of the cost of keeping a child in school is unaddressed. For instance, the Government has been allocating each pupil Sh1,020 per year as capitation grant through the schools they attend. This figure has been used since 2003. The taskforce, in its wisdom, recommends a grant of Sh5,185 per year per pupil.

This is lower than what Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association had recommended (Sh7,751). The taskforce says although the Kepsha recommendations were scientifically and practically correct, it is necessary to recommend a lower level of grant. But, what was the wisdom of not including the Kepsha computation or formula in the report?

How did the taskforce arrive at the figure given? What is the formula to be used in future adjustments? This is a strategic issue that needed debate and technical input that the team evaded.

Doing the same thing the same way does not and will never yield new results for this sector.

{Wesaya Wa’opwora, Via Email}

Leaked report comes across as a forgery

Any diplomat worth his weight in gold, trained in information gathering as a prerequisite to becoming an envoy will not transmit sensitive information in open language, especially when it touches on the affairs of another country. Diplomats from the West would normally transmit sensitive information in coded language that the recipient must decode to make sense.

The plain language alluding to a conspiracy by the British Government in the supposedly leaked document from the British embassy is some shoddy work by amateurs aimed at tarnishing names of targeted individuals and souring relations with a powerful and friendly country.

Not so long ago, there were the Wikileaks reports that targeted senior Government officials in Kenya. There followed another supposed leaked document from the World Bank touching on the misappropriation of funds meant for the Kazi kwa Vijana initiative under the office of the Prime Minister. The denials that followed these fake documents were hot and furious and nobody pursued the documents further.

Ghosts of conspiracies

What I find peculiar is the desire to cast senior politicians in bad light during an election year and to paint them as traitors.

Our MPs see ghosts of conspiracies in virtually all foreign diplomats who are unfortunate enough to criticise what they see to be wrong in our country. Do the freedoms of expression and association limit themselves to persons born Kenyan only? What is the point of maintaining the facade of diplomacy if we cannot stand constructive criticism from friendly countries by using the tried and tired pretext of sovereignity?

How can we trust MPs who attempt to deliberately breach house rules in populist moves to be objective and sincere in their motives?

Of what benefit would, for instance, a Raila presidency be to the UK or the US for the two countries to go out of their way to openly strategise for him? What can an Uhuru or Ruto presidency deny or possibly take away from the two super powers to make them panic? Or is ICC a puppet of the US and UK whose strings are pulled at will?

These are some of the questions we need to ask ourselves and answer before getting emotionally hysterical. Conspiracies do exist, espionage is real but the UK is too old at the game to be caught napping on such sensitive matters of security.

{Alexander Chagema, Kakamega}