Education as an enabler for development

Nelson Mandela said that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. It is the great engine of personal development.

It’s through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, and that the child of a farm worker can become the President of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we give that separates one person from another.

After the release of the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education results, parents decided to punish a principal of a secondary school in Western Kenya over a poor show. Immediately, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) transferred all the teachers. What those parents did was wrong.

The Basic Education Act promotes and regulates free and compulsory education. It ensures accreditation, registration, governance and management of institutions of basic education. Through this act, there is the National Education Board and the County Education Board.

The parents should have contacted the county board to discuss the results. Also, each school has a Board of Management and the majority are parents. Where were they during the four years the students were in school? They slept on the job. Lecturers in universities say some students cannot solve a simple problem. At the entrance of a university in South Africa, the following message was posted.

“Destroying any nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or the use of long range missiles. It only requires lowering the quality of education and allowing cheating in the examinations by the students.” Patients die at the hands of unqualified doctors; buildings collapse at the hands of poor engineers; money is lost at the hands of economists and accountants; justice is lost at the hands of such judges.

The collapse of education is the collapse of a nation. Most parents in Kenya who admit their students to public institutions are only seen in Form 1 and later when they come to collect results in Form 4.

In a typical school meeting, the majority who attend meetings are female parents and relatives. Politicians rarely attend school development meetings. How will Kenya achieve the Millennium Goals of education with such an attitude?

Veronica Onjoro, Mombasa