SIRINGI: Where did Kaimenyi lose his way?

By SAMUEL SIRINGI
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For a top-rated professor who has spent a long time in university management, Education secretary Jacob Kaimenyi’s first days in office have been most uninspiring.

Although his expanded ministry has been visited by an avalanche of weighty matters like the teachers’ strike and the government’s desperate effort to plan for the rollout of the lap-top programme, Prof Kaimenyi has not shown any sign that he is on top of things.

During the teachers strike, he succeeded in coming out as the arrogant manager who took long to negotiate the end of the work stoppage, even supporting an unpopular decision that would have seen strikers denied their pay for days not worked. It had to take President Kenyatta to unlock the impasse, which could have seen teachers earn as little as Sh200 per month after deductions.

Even as he grapples to ensure the success of the laptop project, which promises to be a big headache, Prof Kaimenyi has failed to clearly articulate a watertight plan that can inspire confidence that the ambitious plan would be off to a good start.

At best, he appears to be giving Kenyans an impression that the programme’s implementation may be as difficult as that of the Constitution that has divided politicians down the middle.

The clear ineptitude so far witnessed leads to a pertinent question: At this rate, will the ministry ever start dealing with the more pertinent issues of improving the quality of learning in schools and colleges?

Only recently, the Daily Nation exposed a racket in which university students were buying research projects from bureaus in Nairobi. Although this is not the only malaise affecting local universities, one would have expected that the exposure would provide the Education ministry with a starting point from which to start streamlining learning in the institutions.

Rather disappointingly, Prof Kaimenyi could only ask the universities to be vigilant in supervising students. Nothing more. Such kind of reactions means nothing would really change in the institutions that are only keen to enrol as many students as they can so as to collect more money in fees, especially from the self-sponsored students.

One would have expected the former University of Nairobi deputy vice chancellor to move his spotlight on the poor teaching and learning at all levels in a bid to ensure quality. First, he must start disbursing free learning money to primary and secondary schools on time.

Two, he must address the staffing crisis in schools and universities. The current case where only about 7,000 lecturers are attending to more than 200,000 students can only mean the churning out of half-baked graduates over a long time.

With more than 70,000 teachers needed in public schools, our kids can only continue losing out the quality learning battle to academies.

More fundamentally, the ministry must ensure that universities streamline their academic calendars to avoid the current situation where semesters run for as short as 10 weeks in some courses.

The worst case of substandard a mess is witnessed in the distance learning programmes where hardly any quality can be guaranteed.

In sum, Prof Kaimenyi must now settle now and address the key genuine crises that are afflicting our education system.