Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Lobby groups faulted over the 8-4-4 system


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Photo/FILE Knut chairman Wilson Sossion (left) and secretary-general David Okuta Osiany at a past press conference in Nairobi.
Photo/FILE Knut chairman Wilson Sossion (left) and secretary-general David Okuta Osiany at a past press conference in Nairobi. 
By GEOFFREY RONO newsdesk@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Monday, April 2  2012 at  22:30
Teachers have rallied to the defence of the much maligned 8-4-4 system.

They have instead turned on civil society which they accuse of pressuring the government to get rid of the system, introduced in 1984.
The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) has asked the government to resist attempts to replace the system.
Knut national chairman Wilson Sossion said at the weekend the civil society was being used by foreign countries to have reforms implemented in the education sector.
Kenya, he insisted, was a sovereign state and was duty-bound to conduct its own affairs without interference from foreigners through the civil society.
“If the government allowed things to be run the way the civil society wished, then the country is headed for doom,” he said.
“As a union and teachers in this country, we will not allow changes to be made in the education system unless experts in the sector and other stakeholders are consulted,” Mr Sossion insisted.
Mr Sossion said the union, the Kenya National Secondary School Heads Association, the Kenya National Primary School Heads Association would fight to ensure that the 8-4-4 system was retained.
The chairman pointed out that the union was not opposed to the realignment in the sector but would resist at all cost scrapping of the system.
“The taskforce charged with carrying out reforms in the sector comprised people who knew nothing about matters of education because they have never been teachers at any one time,” he said, and asked what the government expected of such a team.
Mr Sossion maintained that for realistic changes to take place in the education sector, the government had no other better option but to engage experts in the discipline.
The government, he said, should allocate more funds to education to have the curriculum content addressed and make the necessary re-alignments instead of fronting for scrapping of the 8-4-4 system.
Hiring of more teachers, he noted, was vital to make the 8-4-4 education system achieve its objectives.

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