Focus on top marks is why we have cheats

The last few days in Kenya have been filled with great celebration for families, schools and communities around the country.

It was all about which class eight boys and girls got what kind of marks in their final exam.

There, indeed, has been great celebration, particularly in the media. Front page stories in the newspapers and top news on television have all been about this reality of the top-marks Standard Eight boys and girls.

A very good celebration, but as some of us have said before, herein lies our Kenyan problem with regard to our current education system that has for quite some time been based only on results.

DIFFERENT ABILITIES

What has not been discussed in this narrative is what all this ultimately means for the future of this nation if we truly believe that these children are the future.

Let us all accept that this exorbitant celebration of top scores — and not the different abilities of every child — has been our undoing. All the cases we have of cheating in exams even in universities — and there are many — are a result of this culture of an education system that concentrates on results and not on the wholesome growth of a young person.

Thank God there are plans for a new system that focuses on the abilities and gifts of every individual pupil.

All this is happening while other issues are raging nationally. In our National Assembly, there is currently debate on the matter of the two thirds or one third representation between men and women.

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

One can hear noises there about ‘slay queens’ and so forth and I do not think that this kind of stuff is good enough for our national development.

There is of course the other matter of our good ‘honourable’ members of Parliament wanting to be given a bit more in terms of allowances and even facilities in Parliament. Who do these people claim to lead, one may ask.

Thankfully, our President reacted to this matter in support of the people of Kenya.

Another matter that is still a thorn in the flesh of Kenya is corruption. On Tuesday evening I watched Citizen TV’s Hussein Mohammed interviewing Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Hajj. My reading — I may be wrong — was that the man sounded frustrated.

CORRUPTION

Why? Is there something we never get to know? Unless I heard him wrong, he seemed to say that his department routinely hands over information and investigative documents to the relevant offices. He even mentioned something to the effect that some senior people had been mentioned.

Unless those mentioned are tried, the war on corruption will not get anywhere.

Fr Wamugunda is the dean of students and a lecturer of sociology at the University of Nairobi. [email protected]