LETTER TO MY DEAR GOVERNMENT

Dear Government,

Ref: CONCERNING OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM

The recent unrest in some of our high schools is a matter of deep concern. For a place considered the epitome of a functional society, the schools have been cast in bad light following these misdeeds by rogue students, actions that throb with regression. For good cause, it set off those alarm bell in us and brought focus to more pressing issues than watching politicians try to outdo each other in this game of 'Who sucks the hardest'.

I choose to decry the curriculum for being too uptight and stuck up on books. I fault it and roast it on a criticism barbeque for its rigidity, I believe it makes students puppets that mimic their teachers. Indeed, our current education system leaves a lot to be desired and a change should be considered.

To clear the air, I in no way agree with Prof Jacob Kaimenyi on the abolition of Mocks just because a few students expressed a dislike towards it,because seriously students, you fear exams that much? Well good for you rogue student, life after school is there to serve you tea and biscuits in bed, worry not. But seriously, exams are a yardstick to measure progress and the  Mocks are a great mock before the punchline and one that creates the perfect vision for K.C.S.E. Instead, how about we change our curriculum while leaving our significant examinations intact. It's the whole system man that piles misery on our young minds. Instead of confidence, excesses in the system build tension. Pressure isn't bad but an overabundance of it is detrimental.

Each morning, on my way to my 'kibarua', I am usually greeted by the sight of six, seven and eight year olds carrying bags bigger than their parent's radios ( and trust me their parents have big ass radios that can win a sumo match). In there are countless books, each with assignments, all that were done the whole of the previous evening. No doubt the teacher's mean well but man, aren't they stretching it to its seams or what. The brain, much like the body it controls, needs a balance of activity to stop it from jolting to a halt. At a tender age, a formidable front of quality education, playtime and good sleep is needed to develop the hardworking, badass citizen we so covet. But no, as early as six, we have young children, barely ten, dragging large sacks of books to school- see them at five in the evening, with tonnes of more homework to be done all evening long. And the unfortunate part- it has been ossified in our minds that feeding children books like its going out of fashion will lead to development of extra-ordinary minds, which, I suppose was the reason behind practical subjects like Art and Craft AND Home Science being kicked out of the system and left to gather dust on the shelve of abandonment. P. E classes are just Math lessons in false identity.  Herein lies the fault in our thoughts. Sure, our children may be able to pour out the 26 letters of the English alphabet at a moment's notice, but can they be able to use these letters to write well? Will the A in Mathematics be the only thing that we think will make them good engineers? Will we have sportspeople?

All this then comes to our teachers, who lace the semblance of quality in  our education system with doubt. Year in, year out, they demand salary increment (not a bad thing). Yet the training institutions responsible for beating them to shape keep churning them out with the same standards of the 80s (Definitely not a good thing). This is despite the fast growth of and in the modern world. Technology, despite being the ubiquitous phenomenon it is, remains a foreign concept to even our freshest of teacher graduates. Sure, it will be costly to train I.T savvy teachers but it would even more costly to let our students keep getting out of hand. So, now we have  poorly paid teachers delivering outdated information to an exhausted child who only knows that the letter A stands for apple and nothing else and that addition between different numbers is unworkable. How will they grow? Our children are programmed for the exams and not prepared for life. Which shouldn't be the case.  Exams should just be part of the process not a destination. Once in high school, combine the pressure to pass with raging teen hormones and you get a cocktail of disaster. And we wonder why we have university students that can't tell apart a strike and a riot. It's the system man! The system.  This limp curriculum has outlived its golden days. It's a walking dead. Lets call in some change. They might or mightn't work but hey we aren't corpses. We are sentient enough to change.

P.S- The criminals who committed these henious acts of arson should face the law. Nothing justifies their extreme misdeeds

P.S.S- I wish to stamp this letter
                URGENT!

Dearly from,
An educated fool,
Chizzi Freshi

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