KITUO CHA SHERIA BLOG

Playing Football without Goal Posts?

Discussing the Right to Education in Kenya

 What if FIFA were suddenly to take away goal posts from the game of football? What would it mean? Players engaged in a kick-about, without a target? What about the fans? Would they have anything to cheer for? Maybe the moves, but without goals most certainly the game will lose all its allure. I am sure you already see difficulty in working without a target or rather being in a system without eventuality.

This article seeks to talk to the right to education with the legal and social prisms in mind. Can we therefore say that the right to education in Kenya carries with it fruits or is it an empty right? With the year coming to a close, many will be excited because of one graduation or the other, moving from one class to another, one grade to another but to what eventuality? Can we equate this to progress? Can we measure this and say that the children have learnt and developed or is it just about passing examinations. What about those who graduate? Do they really have the required skill? I bet that even for the many that have skills, all they are given by the Universities is not the power to go and read as proclaimed but the power to gamble with their lives and wait for fate to place them somewhere. Answers to all these questions however, may lead you to one simple conclusion; we are playing football without goal post, but perhaps I am yet to convince you, so what does the right to education mean?

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) document A human Rights- based approach to education for all defines the right to education as one that is not only recognized by many treaties as an important right, but one that is pivotal to  development and social transformation in a society. In addition to these, the right to education also deals with individual personality growth and development. The nine (9) International instruments touching on education give it an amorphous look and an interactive sphere with other concepts of human rights, these include; best interest of a child, right to dignity, right to socialize, right to participate, equity, equality and social economic development.

The Constitution of Kenya (2010) read with the relevant Acts of parliament also support this narrative. In other words, the law contemplates a system that is not only progressive but one set out for social transformation, something we can’t really say about our glorious 8-4-4 education system. I tend to see this internationally proclaimed right as a toothless dog given that our policies and systems have largely remained archaic, ineffective and mostly corrupt. Pause for a minute and think about it; Kenya’s Education Cabinet Secretary-Fred Matiang’i has been a busy man this year. From changing the school calendar, issuing a number of threats and disciplinary actions while at the same time playing ostrich. It is an open secret that on matters of integrity and examination irregularities in this country, the door will always open and close with the examination bodies and if not cleaned up, the CS will be in for a rude shock comes January 2017. He may as well have been playing football without goal posts all along.

Away from this, I also feel that it is important to discuss the social implications of our education system. How much creativity and adaptability does it give a child? Why take chemistry as a compulsory subject and spend four years with it knowing full well that I intend to be a lawyer? And why append 16 years of study only to come out and feel wasted? A lot of football without goal posts is going on at the ministry of education and if we are not careful they will help in turning the children of this country into academic zombies.

The other aspect that we cannot ignore is the cost of education. Why have the right in statutes and books of law yet we know that as much as 60% of the population of Kenya cannot afford basic education. Today we have high schools where parents have to part with as much as 100,000 shilling, not to mention the commercialization aspect in our universities.

Clearly, we have to make things right. There is a need to re think the whole idea of education in Kenya. This includes the system, available options all the way down to practicality and alignment to the job requirements and the cost of education.  If we don’t do that we are bound to perish and render the right to education useless.

By:-

Ouma Kizito Ajuong’

Lawyer and writer at Poetic Fountain– https://poeticfountain.wordpress.com/