Should Kenya rush children through school?
Although I was at the top of the class, I was made to repeat a Standard IV (Fourth Grade) because my handwriting looked like “chicken footprints on mud.” The real reason was that they wanted to “promote” older students, some of whom had repeated for as many as three times. There was also concern that if I entered high school too soon I’d be too young to defend myself against violent freshman hazing, which was rampant in Kenyan secondary schools.
(Four chapters of my memoir are about my high school ordeal. The book will be available in stores as soon as I find a publisher interested in an African story about a lost boy, me, but one which lacks AIDS, civil wars, an infantry full of infants, Apartheid, severe malnutrition, blood diamonds and Wangari Maathai).
Anyway, you can blame my apparent anger and mental illness on my Old Man and those brutes at Makairo Primary School for making me redo Standard IV. They sparked the beginning of my painful pursuit of education. Why should I work so hard, only to be made to repeat, a 10-year-old me wondered. I never placed at the top of any class again.
My father and teachers responded violently in attempts to slow down my academic decay. When I finally made it to a boarding high school, I fell at the mercy of students who had been held back in primary schools so long that they were now men. They turned high school into something you’d get of you married a county jail to a military camp. They beat us. We did their laundry and fetched them water from a creek a mile downhill. We made their beds. We polished their shoes. They took our money.
Yet I’m conflicted whether students should be held back until they have passed to move on to the next level. The part of me that has a baby brother who was bullied so much last year that we had to transfer him to another school feels that all students should enter high school at the same age, so that some don’t have physical advantage over others.
But the part of me that has lived in America so long and has seen college graduates who don’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re” or “than” and “then” thinks we shouldn’t let children zoom through school just because they have to be out of high school at 18.
I hope Kenya doesn’t go from one extreme to another. Maybe, rather than impose a total ban in repetition, what we need is a limit in the number of times a child can repeat a class.
Edwin Okong'o and 4 others are discussing. 
Elias 1:17 pm on August 19, 2010 Permalink |
I really enjoyed reading this piece. Agree with the need to overhaul school systems that simply spoon feed information, rather than develop the analytic mind. Agree with the need for a more intense focus on higher education, specifically in Science and Technology and areas where countries can hold a comparative advantage.
There needs to be more discussion on how these efforts are funded and how they can produce a real return on investment.
Edwin Okong'o 7:36 am on August 20, 2010 Permalink |
Thanks, Elias. You’re right. Paying for reforms is hard because we always insist on immediate returns. How do we convince Africa that overhauling education would create a conducive environment for us to stay? Unfortunately, we are more aligned to the Western way of thinking, which demands immediate returns. Keeping the status quo also benefits those in charge, so we’re in a dilemma.
Elias 1:24 am on August 22, 2010 Permalink |
Edwin, yes agreed that these decisions are usually tied into election cycles unless the funding is readily available from outside sources. I think it’s simple. Tie high quality teritiary education into real job growth in an increasingly global economy.
In 2010, African Governments are still outsourcing contracts/tendors to foreign entities. So, while companies from say China can build roads and bridges fairly cheaply, they are hiring their own people to do the work. That translates to very little knowledge transfer and little to no reduction in unemployment rates. Here’s a link to a recent study by the World bank that supports your position. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/e-book_ACU.pdf
Frankie 3:10 pm on August 19, 2010 Permalink |
I like the way you’re looking at this “issue” Edwin.
I would add though that countries like the U.S, England, Germany, Japan etc… have also done well because places like Africa and Latin America are strong armed into providing the raw materials for industrialized countries at extremely rock bottom prices.
Edwin Okong'o 6:28 pm on August 19, 2010 Permalink |
Yes, Frankie. I thought about that. We keep shipping our raw materials abroad because we lack the technology to extract and process them in the continent.
Tom 7:49 pm on August 25, 2010 Permalink |
In the majority parts of Africa, literacy is not enough to help with daily needs and challenges of its people.
KonWomyn 4:11 pm on August 28, 2010 Permalink |
Hi
I enjoyed reading this and co-sign on the first half of the piece, however you cite ‘book smart’ education as one of the reasons holding Africans back, but to me it’s a question of what’s out there when these students finish school. You for example got into Berkeley, other Africans are doing well abroad, all because they are educated in that book smart education system.
Europe & North America have tried to adapt their learning models to more skills-based learning but that has dumbed down rather than improved education. The evidence shows that they are failing to cope against their Indian and Chinese competitors – who, like Africans use the ‘books mart education’ system – but the difference is the job industry is developed on homegrown ideas, rather than what the IMF or Former Mother Colony thinks is best. And the job industry is invested in, whereas the majority of African governments aren’t investing in diversifying the jobs industry and encouraging knowledge/skills transfer from foreign investors as someone mentioned above. Not every child who comes outta school with good A levels must become a teacher or one who has failed must consider nursing. Job development and a commitment to harnessing rather than plundering resources is where the main issue lies for me.
…peace
Edwin Okong'o 11:12 pm on August 28, 2010 Permalink |
Glad you liked it. I think you misunderstood my issue with our K-12 education. I did not say or imply that it is to blame for holding Africa back. My point is that it is great, but it could be better if we added the practical part of it in order to trigger creative and innovative minds. We have so many schools that teach book science, but don’t have labs to give students a chance to put the concepts in practice. Again, add to what we have, not water it down.
I don’t know much about Europe, but I know that in America “skill-based” learning is not the problem. Rather, it is that they have cut funding from education and spent it elsewhere. That’s fodder for another day, though.
You are right to say that my early education helped me achieve the high grades that eventually got me admission to Berkeley. But remember this: The Kenyan higher education system failed me. I had to leave the country to get a higher education. Even in America, it took me a while to figure things out because the Kenyan system had made me think that I wasn’t intelligent. (I’m a horrible exam taker).
America allowed me to make mistakes and learn from them. It took me 10 years to get my Bachelors, but I loved every bit of it — even those times I would sit in my car and cry, asking if I had made the right decision by enrolling in college. Toward the end, I met three great professors, who repeatedly told me how great a writer I was. (I remember only one incident in Kenya when I got a compliment). You have no idea what the words of those American professors did to my self-esteem, but in short, I found myself applying to graduate school, something that was never in my imagination.
Lately, I have been thinking about a PhD. Can you believe it? I can’t.
brendan Stephens 11:55 pm on August 23, 2011 Permalink |
yes i think education is the key
Sean 10:05 pm on September 5, 2011 Permalink |
Hi Edwin,
I enjoyed reading your piece.
I can’t believe “the New York Times suggested that if African men spent less on “alcohol, tobacco and prostitutes” and more on education, Africa would be better off”.
I’d love to see where they got there evidence to support this claim!
Thanks again,
Sean