February | 2016 | Simon Muchendu’s Blog

Forgive me for asking, Mr. Cabinet Secretary, but what’s wrong with our Education sector?

I know enough to know that education is key, an equalizer and a basic human right

I know it’s wrong for me to front like I understand but what do I know?

I know that the introduction of free primary school education was good news to most of us

I also know that the statistics on education are growing grimmer by the day

The reality is that the country is in a battling to raise education standards

But don’t listen to me, what do I know?

Mr. Politician, teacher’s union claim that the teachers are not motivated

The pay is wanting; the benefits are inadequate.

The head teacher says she barely has enough funding

She can’t maintain classrooms let alone build them.

Yet 28% of the national budget goes to the education sector

Maybe most of that money goes to pay teachers!

But don’t listen to me, what do I know?

III

Mr. Governor, my aunt wants to know if my cousin has any hope of being literate

There are only two teachers in an area of 100 square kilometers

How can her mother expect her daughter to become a professor?

If she cannot stay in school because it has no sanitary facilities

Some classes have as many as 120 pupils in one room,

Yet there’s only one teacher

But don’t listen to me, what do I know?

Mr. Senator Sir, 5-year-old children are up at 5am in the morning

They have to walk many kilometers to school

Four or five of them have squeeze into 1.5m-long wooden desk

With the ones sited at the end forced to stretch a leg out into the corridor to be stable

In the city, the same kids have to be brave to walk between cars in the traffic jam

But don’t listen to me, what do I know?

I fear that the education system is unconvincing;

It has undergone too many fabrications and changes for it to be relevant

Employers are lamenting about their “learned” employees

They lack what it takes to bring change in our society

They lack social and life skills

They struggle with leadership and problem solving.

But don’t listen to me; what do I know?

I know enough to know that I don’t know that much!

Simon Muchendu’s Blog