Date Posted: 12/1/2012 1:58:17 PM
Posted By: fancy03 Membership Level: Gold Total Points: 1287
A lot of people have blamed the 8-4-4 education system for the evils facing the country's youth but is it really that bad?Proposal have even been made to scrap it off and a new system formulated in its place.The system however,has faced a lot of problems that would bedevil any system no matter how good or well thought out it might be.To start with there aren't enough facilities.Some rural schools hold classes under trees or in mud walled classrooms without roofs or enough desks.In public primary schools the word laboratory is a vocabulary.The introduction of free primary education has led to pupils flooding schools yet no new infrastructure was put in place.This has led to a lot of congestion with some schools having up to sixty or even seventy pupils in one class.Personal attention from the teacher is not even an option which means students with special learning needs will not be catered for.No new teachers have been employed to replace the dead or retired ones or even to cope up with the increasing number of students.In the public universities a lecturer has to teach up to one thousand students at a time,some universities do not even have enough lecture halls to accommodate all the students for all the courses at a go.Am yet to find out whether they mark all the exam papers for all those students.When the KCPE results are announced, there are seven hundred thousand pupils taking the exam yet when the KCSE results are announced, there are three hundred and fifty thousand students,has anyone wondered where the other half goes?Why aren't they given a fair fighting chance?For them their fates are sealed too early.This is not the fault of the system,its because of poor planning.We should have facilities that can comfortably accommodate all children right through high school.If I were the minister for education I would be very disturbed by this fact.Before we completely rule out the system,we could try the following:1)Improve on the infrastructure in all schools to accommodate all school age children at least up to high school.This could be through ensuring that each public primary school has a corresponding public day high school that is affordable and allows every child to go through the system despite their grades.2)Employ more teachers to ease the burden on the current ones,some of our public universities have schools of education that have a third of the universities total student population.3)Incorporate practical learning in all levels of school,introduction of practical subjects such as home science and woodwork should be done.4)There should also be talent school to cater for students with special abilities to eliminate the emphasis on marks and grades alone.5)Trade schools should be set up to train people in various trades that they can generate income from other than the traditional route of going to college or university then getting a job.This will help create enterprises that in turn generate jobs thus reducing unemployment.Once all this has been tried and has failed, then we can finally be satisfied that its the 8-4-4 system and put in place a new one.
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