System Failure

The 8-4-4 education system is nothing but a total fail. Being through it for about 12 years or more, I bear witness that most of those were wasted years. The system is too overloaded and somewhat unstructured in such a manner that from an early age students are forced to fill their minds with unnecessary junk, most of which will not be helpful in their futures. Despite this, it is very disappointing to see the educators themselves reject a newly proposed education system for Kenya that may actually repair some cracks. They should know better!

The 2-6-3-3-3 is the newly proposed system and it entails 2 years of pre-school, 6 in primary school, 3 years in both junior and senior levels at the secondary stage and finally 3 years in university. This program intends to focus on specialization as early as the senior level of high school, whereby students may follow various paths. Students may concentrate on arts, sciences and technical aspects of education or development of talent. The 8-4-4 system that is currently in use does not adequately provide opportunity for the latter. Instead students are limited to a life of books and in most cases, talents are foregone when one is preparing for their Form 4 examinations.

In addition to the above, the 8-4-4 system has loopholes within the tertiary education sector. Without attaining a grade of B+ and above, and in some cases A- and above, a Form 4 leaver may be forced to pursue an unintended career course. In other words, those who manage lower grades are considered ‘failures’ and therefore acquire only remnants of programs in public higher learning institutions. For example, a student of grade B may be forced to pursue a Bachelor of Education degree. However, this affects those whose families are perhaps not well off, as the parallel programs as well as private universities still allow students with enough and slightly lower cluster points, to carry on with programs of their choice. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, think of the student who earns a B in high school and is condemned to study four years of a program least desired to them.

It is evident that most of the challenges of the system become overt after the secondary education level. This is now a comparison of the timeframe before admission between the parallel and private university program versus the regular admission of public universities. For the parallel program, as long as one is able and ready to pay, the application can be done soon enough to warrant an early admission as opposed to waiting almost two years of post-high school life. Elsewhere, in private tertiary institutions, intakes are spread out at convenient times of the year. This enables a student to make a decision in good time and still attend the institution at a relatively proper time. Contrary to the above cases, the regular program is cumbersome, and thus the student has to wait for long periods before being admitted. A question of logic here comes into play. Take into consideration, an excellent student who attains a grade of ‘A’ in high school. This student will have to wait almost 2 years before being admitted, whereas another who manages a ‘B’ may apply for a private university two months after the release of results and proceed with education the next year after completing high school. This is very depressing for the excellent student who will probably take longer in university.

The last and perhaps the gravest consequences of 8-4-4 to the students are based on study habits. As a result of the complexity of the syllabus, students become crammers and the learning part disappears into thin air. This is quite sad because education acquired in many years is wasted since the learning is relevant only during the examination period. Most, if not all 8-4-4 graduates can probably testify to this. Topics such as: the mole concept and periodic table in Chemistry, loci or locus in Mathematics, the lift pump in Physics, and Isimu Jamii in Kiswahili among others are long gone to them and have probably not assisted them in any way since completing high school. It is sad enough that the cramming habit carries on to university where students are desperate for grades but after the exams, most have no idea of the concepts they learnt. It’s a pity!

Now this proceeds to the professional world, and the result is incompetent staff, who possess colorful certificates and that’s all there is to it. It is no wonder nation building is such a problem as graduates do not explore beyond their learning, but are just comfortable and therefore wait for the end month, to earn their checks and go make merry, while bragging of their accomplishment. You are a scam! This is very similar to Field Ruwe’s article: You Lazy Intellectual African Scam, which challenges Africans’ thinking by comparing how things are done in the West (I highly recommend this article for Africans).

That having been said, I think it is high time the 2-6-3-3-3 system be endorsed. I however think that the curriculum should be entirely reviewed, so as to eliminate all irrelevance in the syllabus and efforts should be made to make the learning more practical than theoretical. There have been complaints that the new system is too expensive to implement, I disagree. I think our leaders need to set their priorities right; isn’t the renovation of parliament expensive too? And yet it is underway despite it benefitting very few individuals. Education, on the other hand which is very vital to any nation is suffering. It will be a worthy gamble for the future of our country and I believe if our leaders and educators value education, the funds will have to be raised and changes made.