I would like to highlight a few things that in my opinion are the educational challenges in our county. I of course stand to be corrected in any case someone has a different opinion or is not convinced by what I will give here. I also believe that I may not mention all the challenges but also trusting that these that I will point out are some of those that require urgent attention if the situation is to change any soon.
In my last post, I shared my first steps of this big dream; visiting schools and speaking to students. I was not only speaking to the students but also trying to study a few things and of course making observations that helped me to come up with what I will share in this post as the challenges facing education in this noble society.
I have so far been able to visit around twenty secondary schools in Kilifi and Ganze sub-counties. Recently, I visited thirty five primary schools in Vitengeni zone of Ganze sub-county with Sheila Mutuku. I hereby would like to use these schools as samples to portray the situation of schools in Kilifi county. I also would like to recognize that the situation of these schools may not be the prevailing situation of all schools in the county but the difference may be insignificant.
The following are some of the challenges that education faces( my emphasis is mostly on primary schools though I will talk little about secondary schools):-
INADEQUATE RESOURCES
A good number of schools in Kilifi do not have enough resources for learning. Learning materials like books are scarce and students are forced to share the few available materials. You can imagine five pupils sharing one text book in our primary schools. This makes learning very difficult. How do they do their homework? How do they plan their reading? I am trying to imagine how these pupils can share the same book in class when the teacher asks them to refer something from the book during a lesson. It's that difficult. There are no enough classrooms in schools so students are forced to learn under trees without desks. Their desks are "makuti"(made from coconut leaves) and their boards are small pieces of timber painted black.
This is not just in our primary schools, even in our secondary schools. Many of these secondary schools do not have laboratories and the few that have, the labs do not have sufficient and may be the required equipment. How the hell will these students be able to pass sciences? Yet we still want them to pass in sciences
I pity the new schools, the so called CDF schools where even getting teachers is a dream, leave alone getting qualified teachers. Their teachers are form four leavers who scored Cs. So unfortunate. What can such teachers offer? Can they really offer quality education? And yet we expect good results come K.C.S.E. Really? I think it's time something be done or else the situation will always remain the same.
If we can furnish our schools with enough and required resources, something will change. Something good will happen. The performance won't remain the same.
NEGATIVE ATTITUDE.
Most of our children have a negative attitude towards almost everything. First towards themselves, then their teachers, their schools and even where they come from. Most of these pupils and students have the wrong and negative mental attitude. They don't believe in themselves. They don't believe in their teachers. They don't believe in their schools. This is very dangerous and in my opinion, it causes 70% of failure in our schools.
I love the words of Thomas Jefferson; " Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goals;nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." Attitude determines how far you go in your academic excellence. In one of the talks, I asked a student how many marks he had scored in the previous exam and he said he had 274 out of 500. I became inquisitive and wanted to know the attitude of the boy. So, I asked him whether he is able to score 300 marks and he was quite not sure. I again asked whether he is able to score 400 marks. This time, he with a lot suity nodded showing he is unable to score such high marks. That's his mentality. He can not score 400 marks.This is the mental attitude of most of our children. They believe they CAN NOT.
They believe they are not good enough. They believe their schools are not good enough and their teachers are not competent enough. When I share my achievements with them, it sounds to them like a miracle. They believe it is hard to make it in schools in Kilifi. So they live wishing to be in other schools outside Kilifi, they long to be in such schools. Unfortunately, the end of their longing is failure.
These children need to have the right attitude and the only way to instill the right mental attitude in them is by proving wrong what they believe and that's what I do.
THERE ARE NO PEOPLE THE STUDENTS CAN LOOK UP TO.
These students do not have people they can emulate. People they can look at as role models. People they can tap something from (apart from their teachers). There are no people around them who have excelled and made it through education( it's not that this kind is not there, they are there but have not considered going back to the community so the students can see them).
At least if we had such people, these children would start saying, " I want to be like so and so" That would be a great challenge and a motivation to them. It would stir in them the urge to work harder and become like the role models. Unfortunately these role models ain't in Kilifi.
There are people from around who have excelled in education and consequently have made it in life. The problem is, they wouldn't want to touch a life so as to change it and make it like theirs. People are so self-centered. They only have their own interests at heart. I wonder if these people really want others to develop too.
As we preach the importance of education, these children would want to see what education can do to a person's life. If we can not go back to them and be living testimonies, it won't make any difference.
It's sad that the only people these children have to emulate are the teachers. Unfortunately, and this is so sad; most of these teachers don't reach the standards of being role models in my opinion.
To the few primary schools I have visited, a good number of teachers seem to abuse their profession especially through their dressing. How can a teacher challenge students to embrace education and become like them if they are dressed like the children's fathers and mothers who are charcoal burners, peasant farmers and tappers?
These children need people they can look up to and emulate.
There is a lot more that I will share on this subject. Here are some photos that show the inadequacy of resources; pupils learning under trees
In my last post, I shared my first steps of this big dream; visiting schools and speaking to students. I was not only speaking to the students but also trying to study a few things and of course making observations that helped me to come up with what I will share in this post as the challenges facing education in this noble society.
I have so far been able to visit around twenty secondary schools in Kilifi and Ganze sub-counties. Recently, I visited thirty five primary schools in Vitengeni zone of Ganze sub-county with Sheila Mutuku. I hereby would like to use these schools as samples to portray the situation of schools in Kilifi county. I also would like to recognize that the situation of these schools may not be the prevailing situation of all schools in the county but the difference may be insignificant.
The following are some of the challenges that education faces( my emphasis is mostly on primary schools though I will talk little about secondary schools):-
INADEQUATE RESOURCES
A good number of schools in Kilifi do not have enough resources for learning. Learning materials like books are scarce and students are forced to share the few available materials. You can imagine five pupils sharing one text book in our primary schools. This makes learning very difficult. How do they do their homework? How do they plan their reading? I am trying to imagine how these pupils can share the same book in class when the teacher asks them to refer something from the book during a lesson. It's that difficult. There are no enough classrooms in schools so students are forced to learn under trees without desks. Their desks are "makuti"(made from coconut leaves) and their boards are small pieces of timber painted black.
This is not just in our primary schools, even in our secondary schools. Many of these secondary schools do not have laboratories and the few that have, the labs do not have sufficient and may be the required equipment. How the hell will these students be able to pass sciences? Yet we still want them to pass in sciences
I pity the new schools, the so called CDF schools where even getting teachers is a dream, leave alone getting qualified teachers. Their teachers are form four leavers who scored Cs. So unfortunate. What can such teachers offer? Can they really offer quality education? And yet we expect good results come K.C.S.E. Really? I think it's time something be done or else the situation will always remain the same.
If we can furnish our schools with enough and required resources, something will change. Something good will happen. The performance won't remain the same.
NEGATIVE ATTITUDE.
Most of our children have a negative attitude towards almost everything. First towards themselves, then their teachers, their schools and even where they come from. Most of these pupils and students have the wrong and negative mental attitude. They don't believe in themselves. They don't believe in their teachers. They don't believe in their schools. This is very dangerous and in my opinion, it causes 70% of failure in our schools.
I love the words of Thomas Jefferson; " Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goals;nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." Attitude determines how far you go in your academic excellence. In one of the talks, I asked a student how many marks he had scored in the previous exam and he said he had 274 out of 500. I became inquisitive and wanted to know the attitude of the boy. So, I asked him whether he is able to score 300 marks and he was quite not sure. I again asked whether he is able to score 400 marks. This time, he with a lot suity nodded showing he is unable to score such high marks. That's his mentality. He can not score 400 marks.This is the mental attitude of most of our children. They believe they CAN NOT.
They believe they are not good enough. They believe their schools are not good enough and their teachers are not competent enough. When I share my achievements with them, it sounds to them like a miracle. They believe it is hard to make it in schools in Kilifi. So they live wishing to be in other schools outside Kilifi, they long to be in such schools. Unfortunately, the end of their longing is failure.
These children need to have the right attitude and the only way to instill the right mental attitude in them is by proving wrong what they believe and that's what I do.
THERE ARE NO PEOPLE THE STUDENTS CAN LOOK UP TO.
These students do not have people they can emulate. People they can look at as role models. People they can tap something from (apart from their teachers). There are no people around them who have excelled and made it through education( it's not that this kind is not there, they are there but have not considered going back to the community so the students can see them).
At least if we had such people, these children would start saying, " I want to be like so and so" That would be a great challenge and a motivation to them. It would stir in them the urge to work harder and become like the role models. Unfortunately these role models ain't in Kilifi.
There are people from around who have excelled in education and consequently have made it in life. The problem is, they wouldn't want to touch a life so as to change it and make it like theirs. People are so self-centered. They only have their own interests at heart. I wonder if these people really want others to develop too.
As we preach the importance of education, these children would want to see what education can do to a person's life. If we can not go back to them and be living testimonies, it won't make any difference.
It's sad that the only people these children have to emulate are the teachers. Unfortunately, and this is so sad; most of these teachers don't reach the standards of being role models in my opinion.
To the few primary schools I have visited, a good number of teachers seem to abuse their profession especially through their dressing. How can a teacher challenge students to embrace education and become like them if they are dressed like the children's fathers and mothers who are charcoal burners, peasant farmers and tappers?
These children need people they can look up to and emulate.
There is a lot more that I will share on this subject. Here are some photos that show the inadequacy of resources; pupils learning under trees
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