Education reforms: Kenya is at a crossroads and we must get it right now or forever keep our peace

The education sector has been in a fire fighting mode for some time now. The helter-skelter and cankerous voices have perfected the Kenyan way of resolving problems – finger pointing.

The matter has not been helped by the bullish activities of two Cabinet secretaries who issue edicts, one after the other, in quick succession.

The pure lack of a stakeholder engagement strategy in both curriculum reform and other reform practices being rolled out means the sector now relies on the individual compasses of the multiple players.

Young people in Kenya need to hold the government of the day to account, not because they have an option, but because their future depends on it even if they do not support it.

Education is a catalyst for both social and economic transformation. Kenya is at a crossroads and we have to get it right now or we forever keep or hold our peace.

MORE SCRUTINY

The current administration requires more scrutiny since it has introduced the greatest per capita reform agenda since independence.

The engagement of stakeholders and players is not a negotiable arrangement as stipulated in CoK 2010. It is a right, and it is the duty bearers’ burden to respect that.

Education does not only liberate you to make choices in life; it gives you the versatility to enjoy the depth of the choices you make. By not participating in the ongoing education reform discourse, young people are actively consigning themselves and their children to captivity.

MANY GENERATRIONS

The government needs to be held to account on the standards it decides on by way of political processes and international charters and treaties.

For accountability in the education sector to work; it has to work upwards and downwards. Finger pointing at this time in the sector is not helpful to the nation and young people need to stand up or they will be judged harshly by history and many generations to come for their inaction.

Accountability means we stop the blame game and deliver the right to quality education and the promise of lifelong learning for our children.

It is responsibility that defines accountability. The Education CS is by law responsible for the promise of quality education and should thus anchor all edicts and prouncements in law and policy papers for the country to hold her to account now and in future.

We lack a stakeholder engagement framework in the sector hence the gaps that exist. We are holding people to account on issues that are foreign and new to them.

As matters stand, we have desperate voices calling on teachers to account for outcomes test … and beyond their control. It is not right to sacrifice teachers and education managers on outcomes that also depend on the actions of others.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Availability of information is the fulcrum upon which accountability rotates.

The failure to have a functionally useful NEMIS is the biggest failure of the sector; we are not able to trace investments made, calculate returns on investment and no research data to make policy and practice decisive … This is a dark cloud hanging on the sector and the envisaged reform shall not succeed if we do not have this fixed.

In education sector, we have been pre-occupied with performance based accountability with frameworks developed in the ivory towers.

These frameworks do not work since they form … and utilise narrow incentives hence the failure to improve systems.

The narrowness of these elements has led us to the emphasis on teaching to the test.

Let us come to the table to engage with clean hearts and the interest of the children who badly need this education to transform their lives. The time to turn the tide is now.

  The writer is the Country Director Discovery Learning Alliance-Kenya [email protected]