got off to a long and deserved holiday last december. tried to blog a couple of times then decided to break on that as well. its true what they say about east and west. holiday at home among my ancestors was priceless. very relaxing, calming, humbling and rewarding. the air is fresh, the people real, the roads adventurous. actually the road situation needs urgent action. this is not forgivable for a country which has been independent for almost a half a century!
other disturbing things were like the school situation in the area. most primary schools have an average of 4 teachers thats if you count the headteacher. addtionaly., teachers get an average of 2 days off when they go to get their pay every month. thanks to FPE, most classes have more than 100 pupils meaning that the teacher has to place 100 ticks (or x) for each question. do the math if tht teacher is a maths teacher. the classes are packed so the teacher cannot move within the class. his/her attention is only on the few kids sitting in front of class. while this is happening, the freeze on teacher recruitment continues and the prezos salary gets raised as are those of the MPs. coldi may suggest that we privatise education as well.
those kids are supposed to compete with those from other parts of the country with a teacher ratio of 1:20 or even 1:10 in some cases. Ngumu!
and still on the FPE, i heard of married pple in class 5 learning with 11 year olds, consequently, the old men (some as old as 26) are sedducing the kids, and introducing them to adult tinking eg writing love letters , going out and so on. remember that the teachers are overwhlemed and so they cannot keep a keen eye on the goins on!
The teething problems for FPE seem to be huge.By the way ADULTS like Mzee Maruge should be in an Adult class not the same classes with tois.
ReplyDeleteKwani where are the 'Gumbaru' classes
Welcome back... missed u...
ReplyDeleteI agree... we have these basic problems but our politicians concentrate on giving themselves undeserved bonuses, perks & salaries!
thank you coldi.. i feel really honored.
ReplyDeletePesa ... there are two missing links, one is the gumbaru classes and two are the village polytechnics and apprentis (sic) schools, formal education is not the only way out and i think its important to note that after some age formal education does not really help. at least not for everybody. i think there should be some sort of accelerated schools for adults. they should follow a different system.
One is building more schools, just so you have more pupils per school. the CDF funds can also be used to sponsor additional teachers-all being paid at the same rate.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course to continue encouraging more private-sector involvement e.g. tax breaks for companies to build schools?
mainat .. i agree that CDF is a good thing, but its continously appearing that its being used as a scapegoat for all govt failures. CDF is being tossed in all conferences, meetings and interviews. if we want to go that route then we need to make it official that central gvt is purely ceremonial and all else to be done federaly through CDF and such like funds. but i like the part of tax breaks to build more schools. when it comes to teachers, i think there is no compromise, govt needs to hire more teachers!
ReplyDelete>>>i think its important to note that after some age formal education does not really help.
ReplyDeleteVERY TRUE