Proverbs 22:6 urges the society to train a child in the way he should go and he won’t depart from it when grown.
Perhaps this is one of the sources of the firm belief in education of all forms that well-meaning people spend a fortune to send people to school.
Because challenges abound, it’s possible to derail and become a threat to self and the rest later in life. So, a firm foundation is a great dream.
Apart from parents and guardians, Kenya has in its Constitution access to basic education as a right. And in the Basic Education Act, 2013, primary and secondary education is free and compulsory.
From early 2000s, starting with Mwai Kibaki’s government that ended in 2013, primary schooling has been free. This improved to subsidised secondary education, mostly starting at age 14 years. At university and colleges, the fees is affordable, what with the bursaries and capitation running into tens of thousands respectively.
In a highly competitive world, getting good education is a ticket to privilege. So, younger people, like teenagers, ought to be groomed for discipline, skillfulness, thoughtfulness, and selflessness among others to deliver on the steep ideals like leading and creating jobs.
So, while primary education is a crucial launching pad, in secondary school learners are moulded for tougher pursuits of higher learning or employment, although jobs are now a rare find thanks to cut-throat competition, complex problems requiring refined skills, and, sadly, the corruption of “knowing somebody”.
Nonetheless, some school children go into employment eerily early due to factors such as lack of mentorship or other threats like limited access to materials and fees.
But are the secondary school graduates worth their salt? Do they have the capacity and flexibility to respond to fast-changing or disrupting global trends, individual aspirations, and the labour market?
Kenya’s secondary schools send hundreds of thousands of graduates into universities, intermediate colleges, and the employment sector, emphasising their role in nation-building.
Historically, secondary education was established to bridge the gap between primary school education and college learning.
Expectant parents, the school’s own history and traditions, teachers and the administration have a critical role in shaping the students to serve. Countless number of schools have mercurial mottos that encourage working hard and ingenuity to succeed while serving.
Is there enough room for the secondary school students to think freely and start making choices like when they drop some subjects with eyes on career and goals?
Classroom activities ought not to be the only purpose of secondary school education. Ideally, there are advantages that accrue to a learner in a secondary school.
The Ominde Report of 1964 identified the need to produce manpower for development and to foster national cohesion. A good school, according to English Plowden Committee Report, targets learning that produces highly prized graduates.
Or are these students under an unnecessarily tight leash of their teachers as happened to them in primary school? Sadly, given the age of starting secondary education, some societies refer to the students as school children.
There have been instances where students think it is prestigious to be in secondary school while some parents feel it is embarrassing for their adolescent child to be in primary school. So, when should one join secondary school and leave?
Is the society keeping learners in school long enough to contain them, thinking that is the only place where learning can be effective?
Can this explain the determined push to reopen schools even when the depth of Covid-19 pandemic that has kicked more than a billion learners out of school across the world is not known?
Secondary school students have painfully demonstrated a lack of enduring commitment to the society in which they are growing. On many occasions, they are preoccupied with “school-child” identity and become wasteful, hanging on the loose threads of laissez-faire, consequences notwithstanding.
They burn down dormitories, girls get pregnant, boys impregnate, they peddle hard drugs and toxic substances, are violent, and divert school fees into acts that would otherwise be criminal among adults.
Why should parents, guardians, and the government be worried about the quality of graduates when the learners leave school without appreciating taking responsibility?
Many times they are cynical and disinterested about productive engagement.
While secondary school education is constantly remodelled to deliver, Peter Drakes thinks adolescents must know they approach adulthood. Thus they need exposure to significantly change or improve on areas of thought and performance when growing up ready to serve and succeed.
The society should fine-tune secondary students to high standards in and out of school by keenly following their behaviour for a more livable tomorrow.
Acquiring the right behaviour isn’t an incident, it requires furnace-like forging to produce quality metals that build strong walls of successful nations.
There is a need to endow older students with morals, manners, vocational and soft skills in weaning them into useful thinking this early.
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