KENYAN EDUCATION SYSTEM

The KCPE results were recently released and as usual every year, the children from less equipped schools, mostly from  the rural and poor families, were winnowed out and left to be blown away by the wind to oblivion due to their light weight status while those from well to do families and able to attend well equipped schools and academies scored top grades and will eventually take up the few positions available in National schools and other well equipped secondary schools in the country at the expense of the rest. I believe that if we had a better education system that is equitable, relevant and responsive to the needs of the nation, we wouldn't be witnessing such large wastage of young talent as is the case at the moment where the majority of children are condemned to eternal life of misery and penury after the release of KCPE results every year. We inherited a colonial education system but unfortunately continue to propagate it despite being irrelevant, elitist and discriminatory as opposed to the way the Western education system is set up and administered in the developed world.
The Western education system that is now practiced all over the world has been tested, proven and found to be useful in the welfare of mankind and development of nations over the years. Through it, great strides have been made in medicine, agriculture, science and technology that has benefited humanity and contributed to the improvement of our environment. Whereas the developed and many countries have managed to make education relevant and equitable for the benefit of  all their citizens, some former colonies including our country continue to be saddled with a colonial relic of education that has proven to be irrelevant and outdated. This is particularly true for our country where despite numerous education commissions since independence we have only managed to make cosmetic changes to the colonial relic handed over to us. It remains elitist because it doesn't  equip us with necessary knowledge and skills to communicate coherently with the older members and illiterates in our communities but instead it entraps the educated lot in ivory towers where they are only comfortable among themselves as they discuss lofty ideals that never permeate to help in the development of the nation. It's irrelevant because the manpower produced in the past half century of independence has not been able to apply the knowledge and skills thereby acquired to develop this country as expected or as comparable to the South East Asian countries in the same time span. It continues to be discriminatory because it renders the majority of citizens unemployable, unproductive and irrelevant in the contribution towards a modern and progressive state. Instead, the majority are left out as bystanders who continue to lead life of misery and penury because of lack of skills, jobs and regular source of income.
In colonial Kenya, the white man and the few African confidants that he had given basic education to assist him run the show were held in awe by the citizens not only because of the alien language they used for communication but because they ruled with an iron fist. The few Africans given that  basic education were employed by the colonial administration and also expected to snoop and report on the rest of the citizens. Therefore instead of them sharing the skills and knowledge acquired with their neighbors, they became agents of  provocation and repression.They rounded up people for forceful labor, they dispossessed their neighbors of land and livestock and became the chief hunters of the Mau Mau during the war of liberation.
After attainment of independence in 1963, those that had education and had benefited from the colonial government continued with their elitist, repressive and arrogant demeanor because of their positions in the new regime thus planting the  evil seeds from which we continue to reap bad fruits in our education system. The new African elite through corrupt ways acquired enormous wealth and could now afford to educate their children in the best institutions anywhere in the world  and who later found their way into the few plum government and private sector jobs. Slowly but selfishly, they have now taken control of the education system through their positions in government and ensured it remains elitist. Through establishment of private academies, colleges and universities without clear and stringent control, majority of poor children will continue to miss ou in both higher education and job market. However, the biggest victim here will be the nation because of continued use of an education system that continues to emphasize on satisfying the white collar job market rather than equipping the learners with useful skills to enable them solve our current problems and allow faster development. That's the tragedy.
At the moment, the South East Asian countries are moving in leaps and bounds in the fields of maths, science, engineering and technology. This in return has spurred fast paced industrialization through application of a Western system of education that they have domesticated to suit their unique environment. Tragically, African countries continue to lag behind shackled in a colonial system of education that wasn't meant to develop Africa but to entrench colonial exploitation of resources for many years to come. And because the colonialist left a rich legacy through their agents, it's no wonder that we continue to witness huge and atrocious inequalities in our national exam results between the children of the rich and those of the poor. Whereas there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Western system of education per se, we need to be worried and concerned about the way we apply it because it hasn't helped develop our nation as fast as was expected in the last half century of independence. I therefore aver that our present system needs a complete makeover so as to make it  relevant and responsive to our needs. Happy New Year!