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Racism and Kenyan education: From Phelps Stokes to the Moynihan Report

24/5/2019

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PictureA primary school in Bungoma. Courtesy: Evelyne Jepkemei (on facebook)
After two years of ignoring and avoiding our questions about Kenya's new education system, the bureaucrats behind the new system invaded glitzy media to defend their controversial education system. Their about turn, which looks like it followed advice from a PR consultant, seems to have been sparked by two things.

One, is the goof by freshly appointed Education CS George Magoha, speaking with threatening language to teachers opposing the new system, even with promises to crush the system's opponents. Wilfred Sossion, the secretary-general of the teachers' union KNUT, responded in a hard-hitting statement that included arguments about the colonialism and inequality entrenched by the competency based curriculum. Much as Kenyans seem to equate superman tactics of Matiang'i's stint in education with efficiency, even politicians seemed to agree that Magoha's language had gone too far. 


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Government has been reduced to a bank for the inept and unimaginative private capital

16/5/2019

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PictureCredit: Kevin Kallaugher (KAL)
The regime of Muigai wa Johnstone, popularly known as Uhuru Kenyatta, has withdrawn from performing the functions of government. It is now a bank. Rather than provide social services, it is extracting money from us citizens, and passing it on to private sector to provide education. The government's only role to collect and distribute taxes.

That is the essence of Sessional Paper no. 1 of 2019. In the unnecessarily lengthy policy document, the Ministry of Educationproposes to hand over the work of education to private sector, and then become a bloated organ for supervising and regulating educational institutions. This institutional laziness explains why an education student was recently overheard saying that they have no intention to teach when they are through with their studies. The student intends to work in educational "policy," without ever doing the work of teaching. ​​


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Sessional Paper no 1 2019 says little about the Education Reform

15/5/2019

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PictureSource: Neurologica
It is really sad that freshly appointed CS education George Magoha today used threats and ultimatums to bulldoze the new education system. His rhetoric is essentially a contradiction of education. Asking critics, who exercizing their constiutional and human right to express their concerns, "who they hell they think they are," telling them to "shut up," and dismising their concerns as "nonsense," points to a failure of education and a resort to force, Such rhetoric is a contradiction to education. Education is about reason, thinking, discussion and evidence, and any new curriculum should embody that. Especially a curriculum whose implementers have promised a new system that encourages critical thinking and creativity.

If the Sessional Paper no 1. of 2019 was to be the policy document that would give a structural framework for education for the next few decades, then it has failed to deliver on that promise. Instead, the policy document is a spectacular withdrawal of the Government of Kenya from education and taking over regulation and banking, and leaving Kenya vulnerable to manipulation from forces that do not necessarily have the interests of Kenyans at heart. 


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#RachelWeeps: Revolution is for those who mourn

12/5/2019

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Picture"Beyond the rhythm of sorrow" by Nigerian painter Chidi Okoye
The arrest and release of Boniface Mwangi last week brought about a conversation among Kenyans that is uncomfortable, painful, but absolutely necessary. While Boniface saw in the arrest an opportunity to discuss revolution, for many Kenyans, the whole incident revived old pain, that had been opened again just a week or two before with the arrest of Beatrice Waithera, or Betty wa Shiro, for being a prominent voice in the anti-corruption demonstration that ended in the usual Kenyan way. With the police firing tear gas.


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    Wandia Njoya

    African. Woman. Wife. Teacher.

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