8-4-4 SYSYTEM, A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY. yes!



8-4-4 discharges



"our education system needs an overhaul. In a bid to tailor full-baked graduates, notes-oriented, and cram-sensitizing quizzes termed as exams, and an obsessive culture of standardized testing should be stopped. Otherwise, the result is a disastrous waste of talent among students. To sense the scale of this disaster, you only have to look at the plummeting value of college degree and the corresponding wastrels. Look at what it takes to acquire a paper (degree): either good looks or good money! It may sound miraculous, like the high school noted above, that a student can read a whole semester syllabus in just two final weeks and pass; but it’s not impossible in Kenya. We can’t pretend that we don’t need a system that drills practical skills; how to rise up to real life challenges. But this can be cultivated and nurtured when the university exams will be open-ended, open-book, open-minded..".

HOW 8-4-4 SYSTEM STIFFLES TALENT & CREATIVITY WITH IMPUNITYhttpThe impunity mercury in Kenya is rising too little too fast. From the depths of classroom with papers to the peaks of Ministry of Education with coffers, impunity is becoming the order of the day. Much as the president’s agenda to fight corruption is perfectly rhetorical, we feel much short-changed when a corrupt minister pigeonholes the call to step-down as a political gimmickry aiming to put him down and walks away with a wagging finger. It further pains Kenyans on realizing that we can’t realize the much coveted vision 2030 if we play around with education. I cannot overemphasize the correlation between food security and good education, but these two are universally principal pillars for any auspicious future for any upcoming nation. The recent two or three incidents of immunity are clear statements, harbinger and iteration of the vicious circle of corruption we yet to meet. Only time and good heavens will tell more.

Technically speaking, I am not at all haranguing because civility and intellectualism advises me to do otherwise, instead I am being part of the solution I want to see. My major concern, though, despite the aforementioned anomaly, is the credibility of our current education system. For the lack of reality check, no questions have been asked, no answers given, and therefore no precise prediction of where our students are headed. Were it not that I am undergoing the same system, I could have easily passed for a rancorous politician manipulating things for egocentric end. But truth be told, our exam-oriented education system is overly wanting. Why? Read on.

Every year our education system discharges nearly over 340, 000 pupils; only 81, 000 are above average (C+ and above), out of which 18, 000 can get government sponsorship in public varsities. This means, by simple math, over 260, 000 students are rendered useless; rather uselessly valuable given our state of economy. The frustration, anger and upheaval etched out of such mishit can snowball into nasty occurrence to these future generations if something is not done expeditiously.

It’s indefensible that Kenyan education system is the most grilling compared to the rest of the developed world, yet it’s the only one fruitless to its protégé. The other day a local school was strutting of finishing a whole syllabus of four years in less than two years. I got lost; how, for goodness sake can that happen? This and many other porous faults, faults like arid approach of teaching, lack of simple application, no life-skills, and encouragement of penultimate cramming speak volumes of how we are in a non-moving lane. But that can be cut and customized for the better of Kenyan students and the Kenya we want. Here is the face of my reasoning.

Like putting all one’s eggs in one basket, it’s dangerous to depend on one final examination as a form of testing intelligence. Instead, KNEC should endeavor to introduce end-year exams for every class; from form one, form two, form three, and form four, which shall then be used to obtain a weighted mean (average). This way we will be eliminating the single-wrong-move blunders that cost life and death. Equally, we will be minimizing impersonations and the choreographed “once-or-never” exam irregularities. Such mistakes leave both parents and students never the same again. The challenge to Hon. Ongeri, therefore, is to respond with immediacy and wisdom of King Solomon.

But the problem doesn’t end there. As far as varsities remain the apple of many Kenyans’ eyes, we are still in the maze. Campus itself is full of losers who can’t make out this or that simply because paper-work is uplifted and talent stifled vastly. My sentiments, stating what should be inevitable and non-negotiable; our education system needs an overhaul. In a bid to tailor full-baked graduates, notes-oriented, and cram-sensitizing quizzes termed as exams, and an obsessive culture of standardized testing should be stopped. Otherwise, the result is a disastrous waste of talent among students. To sense the scale of this disaster, you only have to look at the plummeting value of college degree and the corresponding wastrels. Look at what it takes to acquire a paper (degree): either good looks or good money! It may sound miraculous, like the high school noted above, that a student can read a whole semester syllabus in just two final weeks and pass; but it’s not impossible in Kenya. We can’t pretend that we don’t need a system that drills practical skills; how to rise up to real life challenges. But this can be cultivated and nurtured when the university exams will be open-ended, open-book, open-minded ensuring one applies what one has learnt the whole semester. Not the asking of the plastic repetition of notes but the insight-jolting type of tests. Amen, is what I am hearing from Dr. Sally Kosgey.

Nevertheless, don’t misquote me, waste of creativity, innovation and talent isn’t deliberate but it is systematic. Trapped by education policies, many of which misunderstand the problem as well as the solution, a commercial interest in mass testing is the core value. The catastrophe is that fulfilling the many social, environmental, economic and spiritual challenges we now face hinges on the very capacities of creativity and insight that these systems are systematically suppressing in yet another generation of young men and women.

We are caught up in changing times, where change is a must-have. We are caught up in a cultural and economic revolution, where status quo should be un-kept. To do this, despite the unpredictability, we need to revolutionize the culture of education: Starting from the subjects or course structures to teaching approach and testing styles. Our education should aim at offering real solutions. An education that cannot accomplish this is as good as dead (ours is at its deathbed confessing). The answer, therefore, is to personalize and customize it to the needs of each growing person in the community. It’s not gender, it’s not Facebook, it’s not soap opera floods on our TVs, neither is it the towel issue, nor is it the school-ranking tussle. Simply stated, step by step assessment for high schools, and real-life challenge drills for varsities and colleges is the way forward. After all, grades are not the only success yardstick, there is more. Have a successfully creative day, and you don’t need a retreat to agree on this.

ALPHONCE M. MAGAT

UNIVESITY OF NAIROBI

PLASTIC ROADS; WASTE MANAGED!

PLASTIC ROADS

Snippets

1. Kenya has taken a serious stab in the past at dealing with urban solid wastes (plastic majorly), though laced with mixed results.
2. Lifespan of a road can be distended three-fold from the normal four or five years to almost one and half decades without need of repair
3. It might sound like recycling but no, it’s plastic waste’s “cemetery” instead of lying idle in landfills
4. Each kilometre of road with an average width of about 3.78 metres require over two tonnes of plastic to blend; it will help to eliminate this non-decomposable monster!

Finally the eyesore thin polythene bags, carry bags, disposable cups, pet bottles, etc that have been a social and environmental nuisance, can be dismissed by a wag of the index finger. It is a sight of relief now that the knowledge of using plastic wastes to make roads is a much awaited technological messiah. This connotes a matter-of-fact end to pollution caused by this non-biodegradable waste that is reposed in this new technology. Plastic use is very popular and the prevailing quest for better long lasting roads is also a reality. For your information, Kenya has taken a serious stab in the past at dealing with urban solid wastes, though laced with mixed results. In 2005, the Kenya National Cleaner Production Centre (KNCPC) came up with a plastic waste management strategy for the city of Nairobi underlining the need to utilise dumped plastic in a study commissioned by UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme). The strategy was partially successful. The dossier pointed the adverse effects and economic challenges that plastic bags thinner 15 microns in thickness posed to the environment.

Two years down the line, the manufacturer of such bags was banned, and a 123 p.c. tax on thicker ones imposed. The solution was to not make plastic in the first place, rather than making it without knowing what to do with the waste. Unfortunately, the ban was summarily suspended in the wake of intense lobbying by the manufacturers. And expectedly, uncollected waste caused by the plastic is what we evidenced everywhere and anywhere. Arguably, the cost of road construction may be slightly higher compared to the conventional method but this should not hamper the adoption of the technology as the benefits are much higher than the cost. It might sound like recycling but no, it’s plastic waste’s “cemetery” instead of lying idle in landfills!

First, durability is vouched for authenticity and then employment created in the process. The latter, probably through setting up plants for collection of the waste plastics and then mixing them with bitumen, or creation of self-help groups that collect and shred the waste. Public too can get the opportunity to sell their domestic plastic wastes instead of discarding them into the dustbin.

A team of engineers from RV College of Engineering, Bangalore, invented this technique of using plastic waste for road construction under the strength-and –durability cogency, while addressing the problem of disposal of plastic waste in an environment friendly manner. Methodically, the plastic is simply shredded using a plastic crusher, melted and mixed with bitumen in a specific ratio. By mixing, the road withstand high temperature fluctuations since the plastics act as strong binding agent making it last longer than those asphalted with ordinary mixture. Long durability is crowned overall because rainwater will not seep through, because of the imbedded plastic hence no effect underneath—ground unequal expansion and contraction.

The lifespan of a road can be distended three-fold from the normal four or five years to almost one and half decades without need of repair is in itself a resounding yes-yes. In fact, environmentally speaking, the world can finally smile; as each kilometre of road with an average width of about 3.78 metres require over two tonnes of plastic to blend, it will help to eliminate this non-decomposable monster!

Public plastic roads are touted to be the future tender bidder, deal-maker. Who knows, the Ministry of Roads is ...searching...

ALPHONCE M. MAGATI