Re: Education in Nyanza: Mugo Wrong

Jaluo,

This article from Kenya Times is worth our readership,Onyando said it all.Kenya Govt over the years deliberately ELECT to neglect devt in Nyanza & propagates that Luos are responsible for the same.Are there think tanks to counter this non-sense ?

Jagwassi



Mugo wrong on education in Nyanza

John Otieno-Onyando

Last week's release of Standard Eight examination results reignited the perennial debate on the declining academic performance in Nyanza Province. Expectedly, the debate has been infected by the politics of buck-passing. While Beth Mugo replaced Kanu-era education ministers, Nyanza legislators remained true to their role; defending themselves and their failing children - in the process generating more heat than light on the issue.

Any objective interrogation of the academic standards in Nyanza must muster the basic fundamentals necessary for such inquiry before arriving at any conclusions. What does the phrase 'academic performance' of Nyanza Province means? Is it the mean score of all Nyanza's schools weighed against other provinces? Or the number of children who progress from one educational level to another in the province? Or how many students from Nyanza schools get ranked in the national top 100 in KCSE and KCPE?

These are issues one cannot ventilate without being petty. For Nyanza is only one of eight provinces, and declining academic performance is a nationwide phenomenon in Kenya. Institutional collapse is evident all over Kenya's education sector: net enrolment is worse than in many, poorer African countries, high school and university drop-out is high, 40 per cent and 80 per cent of secondary and university qualifiers respectively miss placement, fee discrepancies exist among comparable, proximate public schools, while universal education remains a mirage despite free primary education. But these are not problems that Nyanza Province face.

Given recent bad performance by many old schools in Nyanza, one is tempted to buy Mugo's idea and apportion blame on a lot of people who since independence have rebelled against the government. Yet Nyanza is not a homogenous political zone. With about 20 per cent of the population, Kisii land is out of the political mainstream that Mugo targeted because the Omugusii, who have traditionally been in government, host a good share of the region's failing academic standards.

The exact connection between politics and educational performance is difficult to extract where politicians are anti-regime. Good performing schools would not plummet rapidly with changes in political leadership. This is foremost due to the inherent capacity of the education system to sustain stability over long periods given the durable nature of academic resources like tradition, buildings, teachers, books and other physical equipment. But suspect practices are noticeable in so-called government areas where academic standards shoot drastically after favourable politicians take charge of the education system. Within four years, egoistic pride has replaced cries by Central province leaders over bad performance. How fast? After extrapolating the performance of Nyanza and Central schools since 2003, there emerges the possibility that Mugo is blaming the victim.

As aforementioned, the matter of academic performance in Nyanza is a controversial topic that demands requisite fundamentals before one can blame politicians or chastise the government. In the final analysis, the answer to Nyanza's problems lies in the bigger picture of Kenya's actual economic status and the role of institutions that determine development in a country. A popular method of deducing Nyanza's declining performance examines the performance of such schools as Gendia, Homa Bay, Agoro Sare High, Asumbi Girls, Ngiya, Lwak and Ahero against their previous records. The effort is dismal for this analysis for several reasons. First is that it assumes that these are the only schools as if Nyanza is still in the 1970's. Anyway, where are the Upper Hills and Jamhuri's of Nairobi? Second is the fallacy that the schools are 'declining' simply because they no longer appear in the national top 100 category; this view minimises the possibility that other schools might simply be catching up, which is worth enc ouraging if the school system is to function perfectly. The system's efficiency is undermined by the dominance of choice schools like Starehe or Precious Blood, for there emerges the possibility that these schools are favoured by system lapses. How else would they combine the best teachers, physical facilities and brightest students with such predictable regularity? Mugo's tell-off for Nyanza politicians was curious for a second reason; it raises the question of to what extent these politicians determine education policy even in their areas. Under Kenya's centralised executive structures, opposition MPs influence government policy only through their mostly-rebutted contributions in Parliament where government retains the majority. The CDF Act and other recent laws have empowered MPs over Constituency affairs, but these will impact only in the long term. To what extent a Luo MP can influence the local education officer or school management is not a big guess.

Yet evidence shows that most recent developments in the education sector in Nyanza were results of community efforts. If Nyanza leaders learned any lesson in the first multi-party decade, it is that local effort, though it cannot replace government.

A new 'harambee school' phenomenon that emerged in Luoland in the post 1990 period, initiated and financed by local leaders, saw the number of secondary schools more than double, at a time of greater economic crises within the country when government development expenditure shrunk.

Everywhere in Luoland, local politicians built and equipped new schools that have increased enrolment, given poor Luos a chance in life and contributed to the nation's human development.

Where was Beth Mugo when Luo politicians built and equipped Nduru, Got Rateng, Nyatindo and many other schools?

How many alumni of these schools are world-class professionals competing against their peers locally and internationally, to their advantage and Kenya's? By 1990 there were only nine secondary schools in Rachuonyo district, and only one in Kabondo division. Today there number is over 60, and the number of students and graduates has grown phenomenally. The situation is the same in Homa Bay, Nyando, Migori districts.

The young Luos who sojourned in these schools are teachers, lawyers, journalists, administrators competing in local and foreign markets. Are they products of the 'bad politics' in the really ordinary meaning?

When the history of education in Nyanza is written, the 'harambee transition' of the multiparty era will be more than a footnote because it has become the engine of growth in our educational attainment. That history is incomplete without the names of leaders like Cyprian Awiti, Paddy Ahenda, Joel Nyaseme, Kassim Owango and others who, realising systemic bias by the Moi regime against Luo Nyanza, initiated the home-grown solutions of harambee.

Many of these people have not only joined politics, their political affiliation has been clear all along; right within the Luo political mainstream that since independence has rejected dictatorship, corruption and leadership that tinkers with the education system - at the risk of staying in the cold and being blamed for it.