She was also a particularly pretty girl and Ochieng was painfully aware that there would be many potential suitors for her affection including older boys and he was at a loss as to how to present his case even though she had once been selected as a debate partner , which the other side won .
The day that Ochieng ’ s cousin decided to treat him to the iconic movie , coincided with Achieng also going to see the same movie and for Ochieng it was sheer torture as she was in the company of two boys and two girls and he couldn ’ t figure out if one was her boyfriend . Ochieng ’ s heart bled .
The exam results were received in January , in those days the results were published in the newspapers and categorized in three divisions , first , second and third division and schools were not featured and selections for ‘ A ’ levels were done by schools and based on merit .
Happily for Ochieng , he was graded in the first division same as Achieng and to add icing to the cake he was readmitted to his old school and so was Achieng readmitted to the sister school . He now had an additional two years to strategize on his amorous quest without an academic disadvantage .
The educational transition from one level to another was then really a personal one that helped students plan their academic path in contrast to today ’ s environment where the country is obsessed with exams and the country literally comes to a halt when exam results are announced .
It is extremely disturbing when the public and government questions the integrity of exams and yet education is a corner pillar in the developmental aspiration of a country . A country that cannot trust the caliber of its graduates at any level is a country adrift .
Ochieng is particularly disturbed by the current accusation that our educational institutions are producing half-baked graduates . How can Kenya be producing academic dwarfs while our exam results are improving exponentially . Where is the disconnect ?
Ochieng thinks that the rain started beating us during that watershed period in 1985 when the 8-4-4 system was introduced with the noble objective of promoting selfreliance and widen the range of employable potential for graduates from both primary and secondary level .
The objective was clear and the goal was evident but due to political pressure the
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It is extremely disconcerting that the average Kenyan is fixated on going to school and getting qualifications and yet these qualifications are not translating into innovation and productive endeavors for the country . The more Kenyans fail to secure employment the more they return to school .
education sector was not able to pilot the curriculum and fine tune the syllabus to allow for a seamless implementation and the result of the introduction was a disaster .
The 8-4-4 system had not allowed enough time for the school infrastructure to be put in place to accommodate the extra year class in primary school and this led to unnecessary overcrowding and disruption of building while school was in session .
The curriculum was over-ambitious and had tried to incorporate all suggestions which made implementation virtually impossible and the teachers did not have the luxury of internalizing subject materials as they learnt at work .
There was of course no adequate qualified staff to run the system coupled with inadequate teaching and learning materials and there was a total absence of a curriculum for children with special needs or for the exceptionally gifted .
The biggest casualty in the new system was the overloaded student who suddenly had no free time and was perpetually in class . The extra-curricular activities went down the drain and the only subject that was of importance was the examinable one .
This position went counter to the accepted tenets of education that stipulate that the purpose of education is to bring up a rounded individual and a balanced one in the sense that an individual so schooled should be able to contribute to society as a whole .
During the colonial curriculum , a great emphasis was placed in the extra-curricular area especially in sports and indeed that is how schools like Iten became known as the cradle of athletic champions and interschool and intercountry events were encouraged .
From the onset the new system was bedeviled by lack of funds and since the government had decided to go live without the benefit of a pilot the clamor for change was ubiquitous during the whole existence of the system . Annual revisions were the order of day .
Disgruntled parents who objected to this experimental system and were financially able to walk their talk boycotted the system and kept their children in the British system and they were able to do so because the political class were uncomfortable with the system they were pushing .
Ochieng is not aware of any other country where the education system runs two parallel systems from kindergarten to university . This is a testimony of the failure of the introduced system and not an indication that Kenya has a laissez-faire education environment .
The more the system grew unpopular the more the political system dug in and insisted that the system had to succeed , which was easy since their children did not have to go through the system they were imposing on the Mwanainchi .
The system gave birth to the unfortunate place the country finds itself today . The 8-4-4 system of education emphasized content coverage even if it was superficially done and was overly exam oriented hence the current obsession with exam results .
The concentration in passing exams as proof of competence led to the teachers resorting to memorization tactics that would result in a passed exam to the utter exclusion of critical thinking skills that are essential for progress .
Ochieng remembers once hearing a Ghanaian education minister lament that it was impossible to memorize a country into development while you can think and innovate progress yet they had turned their children into memory robots . Kenyan students have learnt how to pass exams but not to learn .