Who is to blame?

It’s a tale tell detailing facts right to the end. I like the spirit emulated by our fellow Kenyans at the Coast every time national examination results are announced. I am talking of the real Coastal inhabitants.

Coastal people will go celebrating for the victory of a school or say an individual who is not from either of the tribes in the coastal region but happened to score a B- in KCSE. Keep it up nice people. Am I being sarcastic?

When you try to scrutinize in detail the level of education of those celebrating, it’s certainly amazing that you will find some to have either dropped at class seven or the highest, form three when ohm’s law, loci mathematics and too many chemical equations demanded full attention and things started baffling. Then those who did the same exam with thevictor- the B- scorer only managed to get between D+ and D-, God forbid. What happens?

On the other side the celebrated victor will not go shouting and rejoicing.  Instead he follows his father shocked by the results and say “daddy I need to go back to form three and prepare a fresh for better results.  This is not what I expected father, or what do you expect me to do with a B-. Then the father nodes in consent. Is this a slight matter guys? Come on, let us be realistic. It’s high time we should highlight things and bring them to the lime light. Kenyans, should we be delighted at the plight of our brothers and sisters? I strongly believe that none of us wants to fail in any aspect of life isn’t it? A relaxed mind is a settled mind and a settled mind is an opportunity to so many important things in life and again, such important things can be summed up or be constituted into one most vital goal; Success, then prosperity follows.

The major itching question that should concern every one of us today is; who is actually to blame for the deterioration of performance and the low level of education among the real inhabitants of Taita Taveta, Kilifi, Mombasa and Kwale among other counties at the Coast?

Figure 1a. A poor learning environment.

I have no doubt that TSC employs qualified teachers in our schools, good work TSC. However, a divided mind will always have divided attention, hence low input to the student. A teacher operating a boda boda will never concentrate on the students but will always be in school when required by the school lesson time table, or even send a fellow teacher to give some assignments to the students and continue with other businesses. TSC should do something about this greedy attitude. It’s a fact that most parents along the coastal region don’t give education a priority, am I being ironic?

Poverty; this is attributed by laziness, meanness and the spirit of selfishness. We have resources but have refused to use them for our benefits and the benefits of our own children. We have accepted to remain poor by not utilizing our land and the ocean. It is somewhere in Kilifi where a household has over 200 heads of indigenous cattle, yet they go hungry waiting for an NGO  to bring them relief food, a child is crying in this household for lack of school fees. Let’s open our eyes.

Parents at the Coast have no time to make follow ups on their children’s performance. They will instead advocate for early marriage or encourage them into income generating activities and domestic chores-like tapping palm wine and selling chang`aa then begin meeting domestic wants-hence the child is forced to go to school and attend to work.

Parents! no this, we should change. How is you bwana principal, nimekuja kumuombea ruhusa Hadija mwanangu wa form three na wale rafiki  zake form 4 kesho kuna birthday party yake. Kwa hivyo wacha waende nyumbani leo wakatayarishe nyumba kesho tusherehekee, kesho kutwa tuoshe vyombo, hiyo siku nyengine wafue halafu Jumatatu waje shule. Are we real serious on the well being of our children?

The environment; without beating about the bush, a student learning and  residing in poor  environment will most likely have results full of flaws. Take for instance a situation where the father sells drugs, mother sells chang`aa, brother is a drug addict and sister is a rampant experienced commercial sex worker. Where is the role model?

 Then there are those individuals outside the school premises who claim to know a lot about examinations and how to score high marks while in the real sense they know nothing at all. Starting from the beginning of first term, a candidate is told to save some cash for mwakenya. Already this is poor preparation. In this situation therefore, the candidate become laxity on studies and when the exam come, they realize that the paper they bought from the vendor is different from the one from KNEC, hence another cause for failure.

Finally the parents and religious leaders have a duty of educating the young generation about the maker of the universe, who is the creator and giver of life and prosperity. Learners, it wasn’t raining when Noah built an ark and the only time success comes before work is in the dictionary

Figure 1b. A poverty stricken home. By: Peterson Amani Karisa