SECONDARY SCHOOLS

[kibugam]

Ever wondered why many kalenjin students fail in secondary school, the reason lies with the classification of such schools into National,provincial,district and harambee schools. it is obvious for one to fail in both district and harambee schools because they are less equiped. i suggest its time we unite and transform our own to national status or fight it out for declassification

[altoo]

well, there we go again. the solution lies in consolidating one area's resources to benefit their own. the current education sytem down there was designed for the elite who already are priviledged to begin with. Most of the students who end up in national schools come from the most well equiped private schools whose tutiotion only the rich can afford. with a federal, the local taxes can only be used to build and equip the best best schools for the benefit of the local students regarless of their economic or financial status

[bahrmasa]

Kibugan, I bet you ain?t right. That sounds quite strange but may be you needed to have articulated your observation a bit further. There are a dozen friends of mine who excelled from some rather nondescript schools. I, however, concur with you on the issue of District/Harambee being ill equipped and thus could contribute to poor performance. I don?t foresee any immediate magic in upgrading the class of any of those schools as long as the issue of equipping is not addressed fully.
A more tangible approach would, in my opinion, be to recruit well trained teachers at both the secondary level as well as Primary level. They should in themselves, be persons with genuine commitment to achieving results, that is, to inculcate in their pupils/students some level of scholarly interest. Being a teacher is indeed being privileged in the sense that you hold a stake in moulding a future of another. Often times, this privilege is abused by taking this important social calling as purely a source of livelihood. It is not fair if you are a teacher and you just teach without really asking yourself if what you teach is sinking into the minds of your pupils/students. My plea to the teachers is to do something about their professional dignity and be the shining glory of our society. I belief if we pull our efforts together in improving the learning environment in our schools, we will get there. We will soon get our young people excelling and before long we will have great people in our midst-which is what we all desire.
And that?s not all and neither have I exhausted the issue, but there are of course others parameters such as Parents contributions, Pupils/student discipline, social, political and environmental aspects et cetera which do impact on the performance in general.

[altoo]

let's have a majimbo govt where all our RV resources, taxes and other contributions would directly benefit our children right from nursery, primary and high scholls right thru college education. enough of all this centralized govt crap where all the govt revenue goes to benefit the best schools which happen to lie somewhere in central province. ODM-K better keep thier promise on a majimbo serikali..damn it!!!

[bahrmasa]

Majimboism may not be the panacea to the issue at hand. The majimbo stance could potentially end up in a vicious circle where other smaller sub-regions could emerge and demand autonomy from the greater RV. May be we continue urging our leaders to be more accountable and for an equitable allocation of the National cake. It takes people with truly visionary and leadership qualities to do just that. The question is do we have such people in our midst? How do we spot them and are they interested to take up that challenge? I have a gut feeling, that there are many young and educated people in our midst, who are graving for an opportunity to take charge. Their main impediment is their lack of financial resources to mount the type of marketing that we seem to glorify so much. However, we need not despair for there will sure be a way out.

[altoo]

Of course we have young leaders who are able and willing to do what's right for their communities. The thing is, corruption is the order of the day down there and for one to get anything done, you got to toa kitu kidogo which explains why we end up with leaders who bribe their way to power only to turn around and spend the next five years trying to get rich instead of focusing on the electorate needs. On the other hand, we definitely need to educate our people on what their vote means and urge them to not vote for the candidates who drop a few shillings on them right around election time in exchange for their vote

[altoo]

i disagree barhmasa....the best way to motivate raiya and increase their productivity is to give them a system where they know that what they toil for every damn minute of every damn day goes to benefit their community directly as opposed to benefiting the bureaucrats sitting around in Nairobi waiting for the tax revenues to come in. that's why i argue that Majimbo is the way forward for any economy to realize it's potential...if you look at the largest economys in the world like the US, Japan & Germany, they all have a federal government system starting from the villages to the national level that's designed to develop every corner of the country in proportion to how much resources are produced & utilised. Closer to home, look no further than the federal republic of Nigeria which, outside of South Africa, is probably the largest african economy. MAJIMBO now!!! kibagenge ko kimnatet

[bahrmasa]

It all boils down to who will make the magic move. Personally, I think it is definitely you and I who should initiate any positive change in our attitudes towards development in our respective ?jimbos?The expectation that somebody (Government) will provide this or that system of governance is neither here or there-politicians particularly of the calibre of the incumbent will or may not yield an inch of what is so dear to their hearts (stomach rather). The example cited by Altoo didn?t just get there overnight-most of them underwent quite some challenging moments, but without the sacrifices of visionaries within their society things would not have been rosy. By the way, I am not quite sure if the Nigerian story can be labelled a success-may be shed more light on why you think it is a success.

[altoo]

bahrmasa, Nigeria would have been a success strategically were it not for the coup detats and serialized inefficient & corrupt military regimes ever since it's uhuru in 1960......k, while its successive govts have sucked coz from what i know it comes on top every year on the 'most corrupt countries ' in the world, that's not the point..my point is, if you compare it's GDP and even it's GNP to those of South Africa, Kenya or even Libya (which has Africa's highest per capita income, thank's to it's relative low population), we all score zero in comparison......i am talking about the success of "federalized states" as compared & contrasted to "centrally run states" in terms of it's economic output and national resource productivity
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a CITIZEN without POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE is a VIRTUAL CRIMINAL....when the POWER of LOVE overcomes the LOVE of POWER, the WORLD will know PEACE....I would rather be HATED for WHO I am than LOVED for WHAT I am not....LIVE FREE or DIE HARD!!!

[Edwin]

I tend to believe that Parents have assumed their roles in ensuring that their children are progressing well in Secondary Schools. If we really search the real causes of failure, then we will probably find out that many parents, esp from the Kalenjin land, have left their responsibilites to be dealt with by the teachers. There are things or issues that parents should do in the lives of their children, but what has happened is that parents chase after fees and think that it is only the teachers who can "help" them. Check for example when there is a Class Parent's meeting and you will find that very view parents will attend. I do not blame them becuase many do not know their responsibilities for sure.... God Help us!!!