Discuss quality and relevance of education in Kenya citing suitable examples.

The provision of education and training to all Kenyans is fundamental to government’s overall development strategy. Kenya’ human resource is central to the country attaining its goal of industrial development and technological advancement. Universal access to basic education and training ensures equity for all children to enroll in schools including the disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. Education is also key in the protection of democratic institutions and human rights through well informed citizens. The government has thus introduced major reforms and innovations in all sectors including education with a view to addressing these broad National goals.

Quality and Relevance of Education in Kenya

Government’s policy priority is in ensuring that quality is at the core of all education programs. To achieve this, the government has a well trained teaching force that numbers about 240,000. The teachers serve in 18,000 public primary schools and 4000 post primary institutions. Measures have been put in place to support the professional growth of teachers and improve on their academic and pedagogical skills. Further, there is also equitable distribution of learning/teaching materials in public primary schools to support curriculum implementation. Capacity building of primary school heads, school management committees and field officers to ensure efficient delivery of quality educational services has been instituted. To ensure that curriculum is responsive to the needs of learners and the society, the curriculum is renewed continuously as and when the need arises. Fro January, 2003, a new curriculum whose aim is to reduce the work load for both teachers and pupils was implemented. This curriculum reduced the numbers of examinable subjects from 7-5 at primary and 10-8 at secondary school level.

In Kenya, primary education is offered to children of between ages 6 and 13. Only 47% of those who complete primary education proceed to the four years secondary education. 12% of this group proceeds for further education in public universities. Others join middle level colleges to train for various professions at certificate and diploma levels. For many, the level is terminal.

The education gives Kenyan students a chance to acquire vital life skills that re fundamental for survival. Indeed, one of the goals of both primary and secondary education in Kenya as stated in various policy documents is that of preparing learners to fit into and contribute towards the wellbeing of the society, and to fit in the world of work. These two goals address the competencies for life, which the learner should acquire. The life competencies can be categorized in to two broad are; the learner should get adequate knowledge and skills to be able to earn a living and the other focuses on the learner being able to fit in to a social world. This is the real world of knowing how to live with others and dealing with daily challenges in the society. It addresses the issue of acquisition of human skills. The issues are; knowing how to cope and deal with modern and emerging challenges. It should be noted that the importance of imparting life skills to learners is well articulated n the policy instruments.

The relevant policies takes cognizant of the fact that about one million children of primary school going age in Kenya are not in school due to cultural and historical factors of poverty. With the inception of free primary education, all charges levied to parents were abolished. This opened the opportunities for a majority of disadvantaged children to access quality education. The emerging concern is that as we think of quality education through formal channels, non formal alternatives which offer quality education need to be considered to cater for the out of school youth.

To provide life skills development, Kenya implements a curriculum which enables the learner to terminate his or her education at any level but have acquired skills for survival. A learner who has education on electrical installations, wood work or metal work would be expected to fit in to the world of work upon completion of education. This happens because height quality and quantity of education is given to this population. Notably, practical education offered in very little doses may not assist the learner to acquire adequate skills to fully participate in the world of work. This brings to the fore the issue of scope and depth. We have the challenge of choosing between providing detailed knowledge and skills to a learner in a narrow and limited field or shallow and limited education in a number of areas. It is not possible to offer in depth education in every field since time is constant and can not be expanded to fit in everything we wish the learner to know so that s/he is adequately prepared for life away form school.

The issue of ‘relevance’ in imparting life-skills to learners is crucial. It is important to recognize that at every level of schooling, there will be a group that will continue with formal education while for the other, the level is terminal. The learning needs of the two groups are thus not entirely the same. Consequently, the curriculum for the two groups should not be the same. As it is not possible to identify those who will continue and those who will not, before the end of a particular level, we somehow end up with a ‘compromise’ curriculum, which attempts to satisfy the needs of the two groups. Indeed the group for which a particular level is terminal would require more life skills, particularly those skills which will assist in enabling one to earn a living. Thus the ideal situation would be that various groups would require different curricula. The question, which is thus difficult to answer, is to whom is the curriculum relevant. As stated earlier, the acquisition of competencies for life should not be a preserve of only those who manage to join and possibly complete school.

The millions who cannot be able to join the formal schools for one reason or another must be catered for. This is the duty of society. It is therefore very essential to exploit alternative ways of offering quality education for those who are not in the formal set-up. Attractive and effective out of school programs have to be put in place. A number of ‘Non formal Education’ centers have come up in the country with many of them being run by private organizations but coordinated by the Ministry of Education. At the Primary level curriculum, subjects which are skill based are being taught although the curriculum itself has been reduced to focus on core subjects such as Mathematics, English, Kiswahili, GHC and Science.

At the secondary level, most of the ‘practical’ subjects were removed and transferred to other levels of training other than general secondary education thus denying Secondary school students an opportunity to be exposed to vocational education. However, computer studies are part of the secondary school curriculum. To mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS on the youth, HIV/AIDS has been infused in various subjects at both primary and secondary levels as education is perceived to hold the most effective strategy in prevention and control of HIV/AIDS. Therefore, the real challenge that we face in equipping the youth with life skills and in providing flexible learning opportunities is in developing a curriculum at secondary school level which is academic as well as skills oriented so that the school leaver is ready for life with or without further education and training while ensuring that global standards are maintained.

References

Kenya Economic Recovery Report-2004

The 2003 Economic Survey (Kenya)-2003.