Working party report good but needs to be improved

 The report of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform (PWPER) will influence policy decisions in the Ministry of Education for decades. And certain things stand out at the outset.

First, the recommendation that early childhood education (ECDE) pupils get capitation from the national government could be the greatest by this task force as the parents will be greatly relieved or at least helped to defray some of the costs. Secondly, that ECDE teachers be remunerated by the national government is laudable as there will—and rightly so—be harmony across the counties.

Thirdly, capping the capitation to senior secondary schools students at around Sh22,000 per student per year is an anti-climax. With schools reeling in debt, the situation will worsen if the figure is not raised to, say, Sh38,000 or the school fees increased from Sh55,000 to, say, Sh70,000. Let the National Assembly’s Education committee address this.

Issue of concern

The fourth issue of concern is the strengthening of the regional director of education (RDE) office. As per the management theory and practice, the fewer the administrative layers between the Education CS and students, the greater the effectiveness and pace of decision-making and policy implementation. Studies by Mark Bray, Jon Lauglo, Martin McLean, Paul Hurst and Alan Crispin bear testimony to this.

One very active and hardworking provincial director of education in Rift Valley, Nathaniel Chepkener, once proposed that the office be abolished since their role was just to pass letters and reports from Nairobi to the districts and vice versa without any intellectual input. Did the PWPER ever think of why the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) and Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) don’t have regional officers? If the RDEs are useful, why did the task force recommend that their duties be defined, yet they are operational?

The fifth issue is the reconstitution of the county education boards (CEBs)—district education boards (DEBs) before 2010 that had then-district commissioners as the chairpersons. Following suggestions that DEBs be headed by individuals with wide and varied experience in education, the Basic Education Act, 2013 provided for their appointment and the exclusion of county commissioners. PWPER now wants county commissioners to chair them!

Would the same argument be used to appoint the county chief to chair referral hospitals, for instance?

Sixth, the PWPER chairman, Prof Raphael Munavu, argued strongly for a body or committee to ensure the recommendations are implemented. Excellent. However, the report recommends that the National Education Board (NEB) be disbanded for being moribund. How different will it be from NEB? Won’t the ministry’s professional wing ‘do a NEB’ on it too?

Lastly, the idea of strengthening the Quality Assurance Department of the ministry is excellent. But it seems the task force perceived its role as only inspection of schools and teachers. Ideally, it should ensure quality curriculum development, implementation and evaluation concurrently; hence, also check KICD and Knec since, together with TSC, they form the basic structure of teaching and learning.

Mr Sogomo, an education expert, is a former secretary of TSC. [email protected]. @Bsogomo