Thread by @chris_mungai

I see this thread is making a comeback today so let me just say a few things, having observed the system for a few more months [Short thread]

https://twitter.com/chris_mungai/status/1128545873561104385

What I said in this thread still stands. CBC is increasing education inequality. Unlike 844 which was a standard(ised) curriculum, CBC is not. The school you go to, and the teacher your child has, will matter so much more than in 844, especially at primary level.

844 being a standard curriculum meant that as long as you had books, you could teach 844. Even a small village school, or a small private school, could compete in the system (again, especially at primary level)

The variables were limited. CBC introduced many, many variables in the system. If any of these variables deviates, the compound effect is that your child will drift further and further away from actually receiving an education.

The scary thing is, it may not even be easy to tell, as a parent, that your child is being undereducated.

Over the weekend, my son’s homework was to make farm tools (models of a panga, jembe etc) and a model of a beam balance “from locally available materials”.

We figured the tools can be made from cardboard & foil paper; and the beam balance from sticks arranged into a T-shape. We debated a bit on how much to nail in pivot of the balance, so could balance the beam while maintaining the motion

But the time it takes to figure out what materials are suitable for these construction projects, and how one can go about it, is not available to every Kenyan household. This is increasingly clear.

CBC is going to lead to the rise of a new kind of private school — one that is highly hands-on, teaching practical skills and problem solving from a really young age.

The more well-resourced schools will thrive. And I mean well resourced + nimble, like the kind of school that has already a Young Engineers or Robotics club, and for whom art & crafts are not an afterthought.

To be honest I’m already seeing the big academic names in Nairobi private schools struggling with the system. The outcomes are mixed. And like I said, if your school, teacher, child and home situation are not tightly aligned, your child starts to drift.

(taking a short break. I know what you might be thinking— so what do we do??? I’m getting to that)

OK I'm back. Before we talk about what we can/ should do (I have no answers btw), let me just say one more thing. Viewed in isolation, and if you listen to the rhetoric, CBC seems like a very good thing, an improvement over 844.

Many parents will be convinced that this is the best thing to happen to the KE education system, especially if they are the kind of family where they have the bandwidth (time, energy, resources) to do all that CBC demands.

But if you view it in totality, there is a whole class of Kenyans who will literally not receive an education. What kind of society will that be?

South Africa is yet to recover from the decades where Africans were purposefully undereducated because they were not supposed to become anything more than drawers of water and hewers of wood.

Your individual child might make it out. You might do your utmost to set them up in the best way. But they will still have to exist in a system where the majority (I believe it will be the majority) will have a level of education comparable to apartheid era Bantu education.

But black South Africans did not take this lying down. Anger and dissatisfaction over the kind of education they were receiving was the reason for the 1976 Soweto uprising. Black families fought poor quality education with everything they had.

So we can expect many more school strikes when it finally dawns on these kids what we are doing to them. It's already happening btw. Young people can sense the bleakness and hypocrisy of our society, and they are refusing to accept and move on.

The scariest thing is that there are plans in KE to expand the criminal justice system & privatize prisons. What do you think will happen to all these undereducated young people? It's not far fetched to imagine they will become a ready source of prison labour.

I wrote about this last year.
theelephant.info/features/2018/…

Ultimately, I think we have to get to the point where we see that our fates are linked. What happens to your neighbour's child actually concerns you. Their undereducation is your problem too.

Sadly I think we will probably go the opposite way, where we will all strive to focus on our own children's prospects, and do the most to increase their individual fortunes. The system as a whole will continue to fail us collectively.

I'm not saying we should do the best for our children. We should. We are responsible for them after all. But we have to get concerned about all children, not just our own.

I don't know what this looks like, but I think the first step is to understand what we are dealing with here, and not be drawn in to the rhetoric.

In the meantime I am going to visit a new school, Amana Elementary School tomorrow. They have an open day kesho, and are enrolling for grade 1 and 2. The best I can do right now is learn more, so I'm going to hear them out. *this is not a paid tweet, just information*

They are located in Karen on Hillcrest Rd, at Bunks & Biddles school. If I get any more interesting information I will update this thread tomorrow, hopefully it helps us get some clarity. Open day starts at 9am.

/End, for now.