[kictanet] Education and Our Future

Fri Oct 5 19:55:29 EAT 2012

The perpetual merry-go-round has to be shorted for it to be fixed. The
double intake and the rearrangement of the university semester is a step in
the right direction I think. The two years wasted waiting to be admitted to
university after sitting for KCSE are the most wasteful period in a
students life.

In my opinion J.A.B should also be abolished. The shotgun approach to
applying for university is wasteful and drops people int courses they had
no interest in pursuing. hence frustration, lethargy and the perpetual
struggle to get into 'management' and the few specialists who are actually
passionate get overworked. Let people apply personally to each department
for the particular course they want to pursue.

The primary school kids I see at 5AM walking to school go through a special
kind of hell and only serves to teach suffering and perseverance in return
for a grade. No fun no value. Its a precursor to the drab work life devoid
of meaning, purpose and well being. Just walk in to most government offices
and see how miserable the workers look.

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 6:52 PM, Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:

> +1, x100 :-)
>
> Your points sounded very much like a practicing teacher - and I perhaps
> you still are.  As a Mwalimu, I see the hunger Kenyans have for a
> Certificate rather than for Knowledge.  If there was a supermarket legally
> selling degrees, most of our Universities will be empty.  At a lower level
> (Primary School), I sympathise with my Std 6 son, who comes home everyday
> with a ton of homework that when compared to my days in school - is just
> too much and too deep for his level (in other words, they are like cramming
> Std 7/8 work in order to perfect the same by the time they get there)
>
> And so my question has been, if our Kenyan kids have struggled through
> this crazy stuff, how comes we dont have so many Nobel Prize Winners? (well
> apart from our beloved, the late Prof. M. Waangai). Further, if our Kenyan
> kids have successfully emerged from this heavy academic load at Primary and
> Secondary levels, how comes they are not innovating at the University
> levels as much as the Koreans, Indians, Chinese, etc?
>
> The answer ofcourse is rote-learning. In other words, our kids are drilled
> to PASS but not to THINK. And it does not matter whether they are in Public
> or Private schools. As long as they must face the same hurdle at the end of
> the Primary and Secondary School, their target and mechanism to overcome is
> the same. Drill, Drill, Drill and then pass.
>
> So whereas providing technology to speed up marking of exams maybe good,
> it would be better to recast the whole philosophy of our Education System.
> Lets have a framework that allows learners to flow with their talent.  We
> have contradictory examples like the Nameless and Wahu - great Kenyan
> Musicians who did (am avoiding to say "drilled") the "wrong" degrees.
> Nameless successfully did his  BSc Arch and his wife BSc Mathematics.  Both
> of them then parked their Certificates with their parents and then followed
> their dreams. If their talents had been identified and natured at the
> Primary level, we could be looking at many Kenyans who could be the next MJ
> or Miriam Makebas.
>
> walu.
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* "bitange at jambo.co.ke" <bitange at jambo.co.ke>
> *To:* jwalu at yahoo.com
> *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> *Sent:* Friday, October 5, 2012 6:13 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Education and Our Future
>
> We must move away from offering exams once a year to two or three times a
> year. This will enable fast learners to finish, move on and leave space for
> more learners. Further, examinations should never be a government core
> activity. This is why we have too many people with certificates but cannot
> help themselves.
>
> Learning is supposed to be pleasurable such that we can identify talent
> and nurture it. We have for example doctors without passion or ability but
> we continue to admit students to medical schools based on grades.
>
> We should never attempt to control education in any way. As Robinson says,
> children are not goods with sale by date. Learning is a process. Whether it
> takes you 12 years or 15 years to finish high school, it does not matter.
> What matters is whether you like what you are doing.
>
> Since we have IT availability throughout the country, we should start
> continuous assessment such that the final exam will constitute only 40%.
> This effectively will emasculate thousands of young girls who fall through
> the cracks simply because they are able to afford sanitary towels and stay
> in school.
>
>
> Ndemo.
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry®
> ------------------------------
> *From: * Phares Kariuki <pkariuki at gmail.com>
> *Date: *Fri, 5 Oct 2012 17:41:38 +0300
> *To: *<bitange at jambo.co.ke>
> *Cc: *KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> *Subject: *Re: [kictanet] Education and Our Future
>
> I agree... Though what's really worrying at this point is the education
> bill, that's aiming to control private schools.
>
> On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 5:44 PM, <bitange at jambo.co.ke> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
>
>
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> --
> Warm Regards,
>
> Phares Kariuki
>
> | *T*: +254 720 406 093 | *E*: pkariuki at gmail.com | *Twitter*: kaboro |*Skype
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> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
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> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
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-- 
Regards,

Mark Mwangi

markmwangi.me.ke
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