Sorry, KCPE stars but Kenya is no place for dreams

In her Oscar acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress in the movie "12 Years a Slave", Lupita Nyong'o said: “When I look down at this golden statue, may it remind me and every little child that no matter where you're from your dreams are valid.”

Quite inspiring, but the idea of valid dreams is highly contestable as Kenya is a country bent on turning dreams to nightmares.

The latest (or perhaps future) victims of these nightmares are the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination stars of 2019, whose innocent faces beamed with joy as they were carried shoulder-high by triumphant parents and teachers.

A cacophony of deafening ululations and songs could be heard all the way from Siaya to Kilifi County, occasionally interrupted by wise words from the stars about the recipe for success with ingredients like God, obedience, success and hard work topping the list.

The KCPE results brought as much joy as they did pain for others. As the stars celebrated, the ones left in the mud mourned.

One of them, a 14-year-old boy from Machakos County, committed suicide for “failing” in the exams. He wanted to score 300 marks but managed only 170.

CAREERS

Each gigantic dream the KCPE stars had was coated with innocent and unadulterated optimism.

In an interview with the Daily Nation, the top student, Andy Michael Munyeri from Damacrest School in Thogoto, who scored 440 marks out of a possible 500, said he wanted to become an automotive engineer just like his grandfather.

His peers from different parts of the country wanted to become neurosurgeons, doctors and engineers, among other gleaming, white-collar jobs.

These are most likely the answers their teachers and parents taught them to have.

But someone should break it down for them that things are different on the ground. And that more often than not, the vicious cycle of corruption and its attendant vices get in the way of dreams.

Consider the noble medical profession, one of the favourite career picks for KCPE stars.

Kenya has barely recovered from one of the most protracted, messy doctors’ strikes, which happened in 2017 and lasted 100 days, leaving untold suffering, pain and death.

UNEMPLOYMENT

And while opinion is divided on whether or not the doctors were justified to strike, what’s unquestionable is that the working conditions of doctors in Kenya remain deplorable.

And with Cuban doctors in town, who knows if our stars will even find work in 10 years or so when they will be ready for the job market.

As for the aspiring engineers and other professions, the truth is that even if they make it out of public universities alive and well (now that picketing as a student is one of the 1,000 ways to die in Kenya), they might become street sweepers, watchmen, taxi drivers and hawkers given the state of our economic governance.

Perhaps the next time they are featured in the media will be because they will have joined the endless parade of jobless graduates.

Unemployment will bite them so hard they will start bleeding as soon as they leave the confines of university.

FORESTALL TRAGEDY

The World Bank recently predicted that unemployment is set to rise in the coming years, so even the stars may be left scrambling for crumbs alongside the millions of others who may not have shared the limelight with them but need jobs just as badly.

To top it all, the good loan sharks from the Higher Education Loans Board will threaten to name and shame them for non-payment of loans even though they promised to empower their dreams.

It would be cruel to begrudge KCPE stars their dreams. And anybody who has been through those three gruelling examination days knows how anxiety-inducing it can be, so kudos to them.

But it would be crueller to have the stars face up to the hollowness of these dreams in a couple of years without having warned them of what to expect.

A lot of heartache can be forestalled by grounding these dreams in reality.

The writer is the editor, ‘Living Magazine’; [email protected]