Pas de progres sans education

Une triste realite, evoquee dana la presse kenyane de ce jour :

An illiterate society is an abomination


Just when Kenyans were showing off to the rest of the world how successfully they have implemented the ambitious free primary education programme, Education minister Sam Ongeri drops a bombshell.

It came as a rude shock when the minister revealed that close to half of Kenya’s 33 million people are illiterate, with the majority being youths in their most productive years.

Kenyans in general should be utterly alarmed that 39 per cent of youths aged between 15 and 25 years cannot read and write.

Immediate remedial measures are required since the education sector is a prime factor in achieving the Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015.

More so, the much-touted Vision 2030 might turn out to be a pipe-dream if half of the population will be largely illiterate. After all, young people comprise more than 60 per cent of the population.

While the minister has fingered poverty, the marginalisation of certain regions, and the high drop-out rate as some of the contributing factors, it would be prudent to look deeper into other issues that may contribute to such a sorry state.

The lack of education culture among Kenyans, and barriers to education due to traditional practices, must be tackled urgently.

Significantly, the high rate of the educated but unemployed youth has also led to negative thinking to the effect that education does not pay.

Entrenched corruption has also produced some very wealthy individuals, sending the wrong signals to impressionable youth that education is a waste of time.

An illiterate population in the 21st century is an abomination. It is an indictment of our value system as a society, and our education system.

It is now over 10 years since Kenyans started agitating for an overhaul of the education system to update the syllabus in keeping up with the market needs and social development. This has not happened.

However, such candour from a minister should give us hope. Now that he has recognised there is an urgent need, and he is in a position to do something about it, he should get moving with all deliberate speed.