The 8-4-4 system did not fail us, we failed it with implementation

Teachers at Central Girls Primary School in Mombasa prepare an ECD Class for the new Competence Based curriculum which focuses on skills instead of knowledge and will replace the current 8-4-4 system in this photo taken on January 2, 2017. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Not surprisingly, 95 per cent of my classmates finished high school.
  • A majority joined university and became doctors, engineers, pharmacists, scientists, journalists, et cetera.

Just about the same time the now much-denigrated 8-4-4 education system was being rolled out with fanfare, my mother was, ironically and literally, dragging me barefoot to a backwater village school.

Here, the original draft of my academic script was written using the inexact tools of an untested system that is now under siege ostensibly because it has ‘failed us’, with graduates being described in broad strokes as half-baked, lazy and hard to engage.

As one of the ‘true’ first-generation graduates who experienced the worst and the best of it, I use ‘snapshots’ of my journey through this system to argue that, first, the 8-4-4 system did not fail us; we failed it through improper implementation.

SKILLS

Second, that in places where we followed the script, the system was a roaring success in producing well-rounded students. And, third, that our obsession with — and glorification of — high school is the Achilles heel of both the 8-4-4 system and its proposed 2-6-3-3-3 replacement.

Snapshot 1: In the 1970s, the government established the Kenya School Equipment Scheme (KSES) to, among other things, provide books and tools for practical skills. Ironically, it was scrapped in 1988, shortly after the 8-4-4 was introduced, effectively leaving the majority of us pioneers to the elements.

Those in village schools — the majority — were hard hit since parents could not provide enough food for their children, much less indulge in ‘luxuries’ such as books.

Additionally, most teachers in village schools were academic lightweights — a perfect case of mediocrity begetting mediocrity. For example, less than half of my 1993 KCPE classmates made it to high school and, ultimately, I was the only one who ever saw the inside of a university.

And this has been the case in almost every village school for more than three decades. So, who really let down these innocent children on such an enormous scale? Why was this injustice only met by silence and derision for so long? How exactly is the proposed new system going to ensure this doesn’t happen again?

ARTS

Snapshot 2: Against this backdrop of remarkable academic dwarfism, I arrived in a cosmopolitan high school barely able to communicate. But the school had well-trained teachers who were dedicated to their craft.

It was equipped with top-notch science laboratories and art and design studios, and well-maintained extra-curricular facilities.

Not surprisingly, 95 per cent of my classmates finished high school. A majority joined university and became doctors, engineers, pharmacists, scientists, journalists, et cetera, with as much passion for their profession as they had an appreciation for the arts and sports.

It’s a testament that a functional 8-4-4 system could “spruce up” and smooth out the rough edges of even seemingly incorrigible academic riff-raffs like me.

PERFECT SCORES

Snapshot 3: The C+ in mathematics on my KCSE transcript was conspicuously low compared to the rest of the grades. Consequently, the lecturer enrolling me for double mathematics and chemistry for a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Nairobi loudly and publicly derided me for having an “illusion” of passing university math when I had ‘failed’ high school math.

Needless to say, I had the last laugh by getting more As on my transcripts than most classmates who joined with perfect scores in these subjects.

Clearly, empirical data shows that high school is not the best place to judge a student’s full potential; why, then, are we proposing a system that places disproportionate emphasis on high school education (six years)? And why are we forcing students to ‘specialise’ when their potential is not yet fully developed and at an age when they are the most vulnerable from and being assailed by self-doubt of teenage and peer influence, especially in the era of social media?

We sabotaged the 8-4-4 system in many ways but this lazy and obsessive nostalgia with ‘A-Level’ is definitely not the panacea.

Dr Ondari (PhD) is a research scientist based in Midland, Michigan, USA. [email protected].