Let’s find innovative ways to keep the candidates who fail exams productive

Teachers and parents of Nyahururu Elite Schools holding prayers at the school on January 4, 2014 after the school produced the best pupil in Nyandarua County with 433 Marks in last year KCPE. Education is the best legacy that parents can bequeath their children. It prepares them for future careers. PHOTO | FILE 

In Summary

• Today, national exams have become something akin to the Olympics – a competition in which the winner takes home gold in the form of admission to the best schools
• Countries like Japan have resolved the conundrum by embracing a system of entrance examinations where secondary schools set their own tests and candidates compete for available spaces based on their performance
• The aim of education should be to create individuals who are useful, first to themselves, and to the environment that produces them

 

By Ng'ang'a Mbugua
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Education is the best legacy that parents can bequeath their children. Besides preparing them for future careers, it also equips them with the skills they need to create order out of the chaos of life.

It also gives them the tools with which to advance themselves socially and economically, and secure a worthwhile future for themselves and their descendants.

In the villages, elderly men of ordinary means these days warn their children that land is shrinking and the days when one would inherit large swathes are gone, largely because family sizes have increased while land sizes have remained constant.

The challenge is on future generations to seek innovative ways to become worthy players in the new economy.

But, as it always happens, there are those who will perform better than others and the real test, for parents and the greater society, is to ensure that we do not send the message that those who did not do well in the exams will also fail in life.

Today, national exams have become something akin to the Olympics – a competition in which the winner takes home gold in the form of admission to the best schools.

In itself, this is a fine thing because such schools have an enviable tradition, and they imbue their charges with an outlook towards life that is unique. They also offer prestige that can open doors in many places.

ACADEMIC STAMPEDE

But the stampede to join these schools also leaves in its wake a trail of broken dreams and sometimes broken lives when children who fail to qualify are made to feel they are unworthy.

Countries like Japan have resolved the conundrum by embracing a system of entrance examinations where secondary schools set their own tests and candidates compete for available spaces based on their performance.

This has two advantages. A candidate interested in joining a particular school has to have the strengths it calls for, be it in the sciences or the arts.

Secondly, competition is drastically reduced because parents, teachers and their students set realistic expectations, and they can assess what school a student is best suited to join.

However, in a culture defined by favouritism, corruption and cheating, such as Kenya’s, such a system is unlikely to be sustainable because unscrupulous parents can buy their way into such schools, either with money or influence.

But this is because society has steadily been losing focus on what ought to be the role of education.

When all other basic conditions have been satisfied – such as adequate teachers, books and a conducive learning environment – the most important consideration should be how individual students benefit from the years spent in a particular institution, and how this prepares one to face the challenges that life presents.

Anecdotal evidence appears to suggest that the people who have had fulfilling careers or who have made a mark in their professions and even on the national stage, attended ordinary village, neighbourhood or district schools.

OUTSHINING THE BEST

In some instances, such students have outshone their colleagues from prestigious schools in endeavours outside school, including the depth and breadth of their professional and public contribution. Sometimes, they have even made better leaders.

This, of course, is not to say that children who have been exceptional from the very beginning have not made a mark.

Rather, it is an acknowledgment that they are few and far between, and cannot be used as a fair yardstick to measure those who fall in the second and third quartile in the classification of academic excellence.

Indeed, when the exceptional students are celebrated, it should be to send a signal that merit has a venerated place in society.

This is an important message that has been lost in the quest for what we call these days “the face of Kenya” which, sometimes, becomes a byword for bypassing merit at the altar of ethnic diversity.

ROLE OF EDUCATION

The aim of education should be to create individuals who are useful, first to themselves, and to the environment that produces them.

The second should be to equip them with values, skills and mental attitudes that make them productive, open and progressive citizens who play their rightful role in the development of the republic.

As happens in all systems, there are those who will fall off the wagon and those who cannot conform despite all efforts to mould them.

Rather than kill all their hopes for a brighter future, we must find a way of keeping them productively engaged for their own good . . . and ours.

jmbugua@ke.nationmedia.com