[kictanet] Education and Our Future

[bitange at jambo.co.ke]

Ken Robinson says that schools have killed creativity.  From the recent
Kenya Union of Teachers’ (KNUT) strike it was evident that we are lacking
in creativity.  Three weeks of strike threatened the effectiveness of the
Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) like never before.  Why is KNEC
linked to KNUT?

In 2010 GCSE candidates took their exam towards the end June and the
results were out by August.  More than 700,000 students worldwide did
mathematics and English while other subjects averaged more than 350,000
candidates.  At the same time about 360,000 sat for the KCSE in the same
year between October and November but the results came out at the end of
February.  In other words marking our exams took twice as much as it took
the Pearson’s Group (a private entity) to mark GCSE.

GCSE exams are marked by retired teachers as well as other qualified
people.  It is a contract for which you are paid 800 pounds for the three
to four weeks exercise.  They heavily use IT to process the exams and some
papers are marked by computers.

The company offers a variety of qualifications, including A Levels (GCEs),
Edexel (which is one of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’s five main
examination boards and the BTEC suit of examination qualifications. It
also offers work-based learning qualifications – including BTEC
Apprenticeships through Pearson Work Based Learning, awarding over 1.5
million certificates to students around the world every year.
Since we benchmark on everything, is it not time we started to benchmark
on our education?

Ndemo.