My good friend Dr. Wandia Njoya, the Lecturer and blogger has penned numerous opinion pieces on education and our obsession with exams.
Njoya says, ‘the Kenyan collective mind is obsessed with just a one part of education: the content taught and how kids perform in exams. This myopic obsession means three things. One, Kenyans go through hysteria once a year when results are released, and for the rest of the year, we do not talk about the bigger issues bedeviling education. Two, we do not fundamentally re-examine the role of examinations. And three, we believe that changing one numerical formula with another, 8-4-4 with 2-6-3-3 will solve every problem related to not only education, but even the economy!’.
Today, sad news broke by local media stations reported that a woman had sewn her child’s mouth for failing in exams.
Residents of Maai Mahiu in Naivasha, Nakuru County have been left in shock after the lady, a hairdresser sewed up the mouth of her Class Five son over declining performance in school.
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This aptly depicts our obsession with exams. The fact that we also don’t love our children as Kenyans screams loudly in this scenario.
The mother has been apprehended but will justice be done?
Who will take care of the kids when the mother I’d undergoing trial or worse still jailed?
Kenyans need to ask the government to change. You need to change the government before it eats you.
We have been reduced to robots. But what can we do?
The new education curriculum is not the most perfect. There are fundamental questions about its sustainability.
We know the lie that we’ve always worked with is that if a child passes their exams, then they’ll land a good job. But with unemployment rates staring at near 50%, where are the jobs.
The Government of Kenya has failed and continues to fail in this regards.
Why would passing exams be even about jobs in the first place?
Wandia writes that, in support of the new education curriculum, ‘Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) officials are saying that, employers will be going to schools to offer jobs to students! How can anyone believe that in the 21st century?’, she asks.
Let’s stop our obsession with exams and accompanying problems of cheating and cramming.
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