Review 8-4-4 system before switching to 2-6-6-3
The chairman for KUPPET in Bungoma County, Denson Barasa, has urged the ministry of Education to reform the current education system (8-4-4 system) by restructuring the bodies that are responsible for the curriculum before allowing the proposed new (2-6-6-3)one to take effect.
Barasa said, “Before we engage into thinking of changing 8-4-4 we should try to recapture where the rain started beating us, during our days we used to learn how to make funnels soap dish but they were scraped off by the ministry.”
He says the system may sound useless as the ministry has not allowed the current one to mature and make veins in and bring changes to Kenyan boys and girls.
He furiously asked the ministry not to allow the proposed system to come into effect saying it will fail to bring up men and women who can bring vast changes to the future of the country.
“We are opposing to the system because try to think a child of twelve years joining secondary school, a place where many becomes dependant or a child is taken from Busia or say Homa Bay county to join in Mombasa county I think the government is joking with education.” He said angrily.
Mr Barasa cautiously urged the ministry to engage the ideas of the psychologists in the system. He added that psychologically the child under the age of twelve needs parental care and strongly admitted that the union won’t support the move by the ministry to change it.
However he urged the teachers to validate their pay slip digitally to conquer their employee teacher service commission in the game of cut and rats.
“Teachers this is digital era and we should use it make our pay slip online with union validation to win the war over the TSC.” Mr. Barasa said.
The same sentiment were echoed by his Busia county counterpart Charles Mukhwana who refuted at the ministry of ignoring the two trade union during the birth of the revoking the 8-4-4 system.
Mukhwana said the failure by the ministry to engage the union in any education matters is a big threat to the millions of Kenyan people. He believes that for the society to prosper we should have a well functioning education system that follows the development stages in human life.
“We were not included in the reforming the education by the ministry but it claims that five hundred people were involved in the process so we want to appeal to the ministry that let it go back to the drawing board to and allow the unions to have their opinions heard.” Mukhwana said.
Mukhwana said that they don’t truly oppose the change but the government should allow the teachers to be part of the change and the interest of them. He added that it should be widely consulted but not just hand picking the representatives. He claimed that with the lucking number of the teachers who can handle the current system it would be hard to adopt the new one and to make sure that the inside interest are catered for.
He also appealed to the national government to release the free primary education and free day secondary education in time to ease the burden that most of the school heads are undergoing through.
“The next term fee should come before the school opens second term because the most of the parents are unable to complete their school fees on time.” He added.
He added that this has contributed to the drop to the school performance countrywide. Also asked the TSC to stop intimidating the teachers in their line of duty by creating fishy laws that cannot give teachers an inch to breath.
