Wesaya Maina*
The ongoing confusion with regard to the budgetary allocations for the crucial ministry of education sent me thinking and musing over what New Year resolutions should entail. I have been a keen follower of the education reform programme since 2003. In my occasional musing, I decided to read something to crown my sorrows.
I looked at my humble bookshelf and picked Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream”. Reading the initial pages, I came across a key statement that not only the custodians of our public resources need to know but anyone who cares about the future of this nation. The gist of the statement from the book reads: “…any genuine commitment to the values of equal opportunity and upward mobility- requires us to revamp our education system from top to bottom, replenish our teaching corps, and buckle down on mathematics and science instruction, and rescue inner-city kids from illiteracy”.
Reading further, Obama goes further to say… “And yet our debate on education seems stuck between those who want to dismantle the public school system and those who would defend an indefensible status quo, between those who say money makes no difference in education and those who want more money without any demonstration that it will be put to good use”.
This reading put the current education sector confusion in perspective. We have known at it is vividly evident that education as a process, it is a liberating process, either at the consciousness level or the personal capability development level. In Kenya, your level and type of education determines who and what you become.
Secondly, if Kenya is keen on eliminating poverty and the inherent social and economic inequalities we experience, then we must invest more and more in education but that has to be wise and judiciously executed.
Obama animates that revamping education requires replenishing of the teaching army…is the ministry of education listening? How can we truly say as a nation that education and manpower development remains a key driver for the achievement of vision 2030 we have not employed any teacher since 1998- save for replacing those who leave the service through natural attrition? In any investment made, the manpower to realise the efficient allocation and utilisation of resources remain the hub on which the venture rotates.
The instruction and teaching of mathematics and science must remain central to the nurturing of our young ones to have capacity to shoulder the burden and challenges of the future. As a nation, we must increasingly seek to empower those in disadvantaged positions, those in extremely poor conditions or those with special needs and or challenges.
Our way out of the rut we are need cannot start and end with pitting private schools versus public schools. It needs to go beyond such simplistic dichotomies and appreciate the functionality of the education we are offering our young ones then tie it with the dream we have for the nation. This matching and locating must be context specific. We must appreciate that our terrain is uneven and provide for those in whose physical situation, they are trudging uphill while the rest are going downhill. We must be both philosophical and practical in our educational design and orientation.
The taxpayer must not only get value for their money but the type of education offered must serve its intended function of churning out creators and not creatures as the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere once put it his writings on the philosophy of education.
We cannot move forward by denying that wrongs that have bedeviled the past practices within the ministry of education. Resources have not been put to the most efficient use and we need to be magnanimous and acknowledge that we have erred in past but show our willingness to return to the straight and narrow through continually learning and rectifying the mess through a systematic injection of some level of prudence in the management of our hard earned resources.
The ministry of education must convince us today and not tomorrow, why it must continue receiving the largest budgetary allocation if year after year, all we are going to end up with are scandal and fleecing schemes. We are not baying for anybody’s blood but as concerned parties we seek the light and the truth that will secure the future of so may young Kenyans. Professor Keraga Mutahi and Professor Godia must actually be listening…Your word? Who will be the pragmatic one to lead us out of the quagmire? We are all watching your lips and steps very keenly!
*Wesaya Maina is a graduate teacher and the Organisational Development Advisor, Africa Peace Forum.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this section do not necessarily represent the opinions of CISA.
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