Open letter to the 5th President on education

President William Ruto.

President William Ruto. Mr President, rein in politicians using your name to propagate their views on what should happen to CBC. 

Photo credit: Jeff Angote | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Without expeditiously fixing the education sector, your entire transformation agenda will be severely undermined.
  • The full-blown crisis in the education sector is the most urgent and strategically debilitating problem your regime will have to confront.
  • Rein in politicians using your name to propagate their views on what should happen to CBC. 

Dear Mr President,

Congratulations on your assumption of office as the fifth president of the Republic of Kenya.

As you take the reins of power, there is no doubt that lots of expectations have been placed on your shoulders.

They include cutting the cost of living, addressing youth unemployment and implementing programmes that uplift those at the bottom of our socio-economic pyramid.

Indeed, your government has risen to power on the back of many promises, with socio-economic transformation to uplift millions out of abject poverty as the most overarching of them all.

It suffices to say that the demands on you and your government will be many and varied.

In this second of five open letters, I intend to write to you in the coming weeks – all focusing on education – I highlight three key issues.

But first, why education? Because it underlies your promise of socio-economic transformation.

The rampant inequalities in our society that have created millions of “hustlers” stem from and feed the inequalities in access to education, thereby creating a vicious cycle of poverty and underdevelopment.

Without expeditiously fixing the education sector, your entire transformation agenda will be severely undermined.

The full-blown crisis in the education sector is the most urgent and strategically debilitating problem your regime will have to confront.

I commend you for highlighting part of this crisis in your first address to the nation and undertaking to resolve it in a timely manner.

Yes, the implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), as I said in my earlier letter, is a costly fiasco.

The mess has brought pain to children, teachers and parents, while simultaneously undermining the nation’s strategic interest.

And yes, a task force to relook at the implementation of the new curriculum is both welcome and timely. 

Kenyans, especially those who are directly involved in this sector, are awaiting the task force and its report with bated breath.

They hope it will offer an opportunity to remedy obvious mistakes made thus far as well as provide a framework for troubleshooting challenges that are yet to but will emerge as is the norm when implementing a new programme.

However, Mr President, there are lots of Kenyans who fear that the task force could be hijacked by radical CBC sceptics to sow more confusion into the already messed-up education sector. 

Similarly, there are fears of doubling down on the politicisation of CBC to the detriment of the millions of children already enrolled in the system. 

Composition of task force

This fear, however, can be assuaged by the composition of the task force and its Terms of Reference.

I urge you with humility to populate the task force with the right people ( who are ready to listen, read and understand) and delimit the scope of their work appropriately.

This should neither include restarting the curriculum reform process nor throwing out the bath water with the baby entrusted to them.

This option may seem easy and politically attractive, but it could hurt the country in many ways that I cannot explain in this article. 

This letter thus dwells only on three broader issues that only you can fix.

The first one is the appointment of the task force and its mandate: Don’t populate it with individuals with known anti-CBC interests and self-serving positions.

This would undermine the credibility of the process at the outset and disenfranchise rational voices that could help in finding solutions to the problems bedevilling the nascent curriculum.

Rein in politicians using your name to propagate their views on what should happen to CBC. 

The second is the appointment of the Cabinet Secretary for Education: It is purely your prerogative to appoint all the Cabinet Secretaries to help you run the government.

I have neither the right nor privilege of knowing what you will consider in the process of appointing and deploying the individuals that you will choose. 

However, I’m duty-bound as a citizen with significant knowledge of the sector to offer some suggestions.

To redeem the sector, please appoint a CS who is first and foremost capable and willing to listen to multiple viewpoints on key issues affecting the sector.

Secondly, he or she must be willing to sit in the office and rack his or her brain together with other senior officers to return the sector on its strategic growth path, which it lost some time back.

Thirdly, he/she must commit to ending the convolution of the sector structures, which has resulted in top leaders getting immersed in operational duties at the expense of providing strategic leadership.

The least effective 

The third issue is on Parliamentary Committee on Education: The composition of this crucial committee will matter a great deal. The immediate former committee was the least effective I have seen in a long time.

There are men and women in the 13th Parliament who have served with distinction in this committee before. Give them, especially those in your party, a chance to champion the revival of this crucial sector.

Commit to redeeming this sector. While at it, Mr President, keep your eyes on the equity implications of all your actions!

Dr Manyasa is the Executive Director – Usawa Agenda