LEADERSHIP HAMPERING EDUCATION AT COAST

A forum recently organized by the Ministry of Education dubbed “Re-engineering Education Standards in the Coast Province” saw representatives from the region’s six counties come together to discuss how to revive academic standards.

Factors that should be looked into in an effort to help return academic glory to the province were discussed. Sitting there for almost five hours, listening to one speaker after another, I wondered whether we were discussing anything new.

Looking at the participants, I imagined they had come in the hope of getting an easy solution to the problem of ailing education standards — but that did not happen and it remains just a hope.

The challenges of shortage of teachers and poor infrastructure notwithstanding, it are my opinion that the biggest enemy of education at the Coast is attitude. It is a long chain from the students, to the teachers, parents and political leadership.

I say attitude and not necessarily harsh climatic conditions or poor staffing because other regions experience more severe constraints and perform better in national examinations.

Garissa District, for example, is an arid area, but it had a mean score of 283.54 compared to Mombasa District’s 267.49 in the 2009 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination results.

A negative attitude towards education by parents and students is to blame for poor performance. Poor families chose to send their boy children to school, keeping girls at home or marrying them off at an early age.

There are also few role models and mentorship, contributing to apathy towards education. Although enrolment rates have gone up because of the government’s free primary and day secondary education projects, Coast schools have continued to performed poorly.

In the 2009 KCSE results, the 21 districts in Coast Province collectively produced 24 candidates with the grade of A plain. Individual schools in other districts produced the same number of candidates or even double that.

In the 2009 KCPE, Coast Province had only seven candidates among the top 100 students nationwide, while Nairobi Province was first with 35 candidates.

The multiplier effect of poor performance in primary school leads to fewer students joining secondary schools and universities. This, in turn, means that there are fewer candidates from the region in the national job market.

Remedial strategies include leaders holding forums at county level to discuss the challenges. Schools should be encouraged to develop strategic plans, improve monitoring and evaluation, and benchmark with clearly set performance targets.

Incentives like prizes could help motivate both teachers and students. Professionals from the region should be encouraged to act as role models and mentors for the students by participating in the governance of schools.

To support students whose parents cannot afford to pay for their tertiary education, each county should establish an endowment fund to complement the government’s efforts.

Offering bursaries to needy students would go a long way to ensure that they are retained in school. The Coastal region has enormous potential, but it requires relevant, adequate, and quality human resource for its socio-economic development.