This archive report was first published on 27 October 2019.
As our children sit for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination, it's worth asking: why do we take our children to school? The answer to this question is crucial in shaping our education system.
The current 8-4-4 system has been roundly condemned for being too examination-focused, reducing a child's educational attainment to a score out of 500 marks. This has led to a culture of rote learning, where students are drilled with information in the hope of scoring above average.
The Competency-based Curriculum (CBC), introduced to address these issues, lacks a clear policy framework to support it. The first Cabinet secretary given the responsibility to implement it declared that the sector was not ready for the new curriculum, only to be replaced by someone considered more prepared.
Without a consensual and coherent answer to the question of why we take our children to school, we risk repeating the same mistakes made with 8-4-4. The education sector is still in the dark concerning the CBC trajectory beyond early primary school, and there is no clear framework for transition from basic education to tertiary institutions of learning.
It's time to comprehensively address the core question concerning education before deciding how to structure the education system. Only then can we create a system that gives young people the opportunity to learn practical life skills that will be useful to them, regardless of whether they drop out of school or not.
Professor LUKOYE ATWOLI is the Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Moi University School of Medicine.
