The year is 2030 and the country
is gathered in different counties to witness the graduation ceremony of the
first batch of students to go through the Malibongo education system. The Malibongo
education system as the name suggest (which is a loose translation of wealth in
brains or mental wealth) was a radical approach in the Kenyan education system.
The system suggested not only a shift from the mainstream education program
used in the country but against even systems available globally. Its critics
and supporters were therefore drawn from within the country and
internationally. However the fearless audacity of its pioneers triumphed
against even international education partners who had threatened to ostracize
the country for its independent school of thought in education provision.
The Malibongo education program
was based on the agreement that the education system at the time offered little
in terms of specialized training in the initial twelve years of education.
Students at the age of 18, at the end of their first twelve years of education
were experts in nothing but how to read and write. Considering the great
disparities in education facilities and socio-economic background, even after these
twelve years more than half of our children reading and writing skills were
barely average. The existing education system guaranteed that more than three
quarters of the product of our twelve year education system were noting but human
data storage carriers. There was little room for free thought or sound
interpretation of the data they had crammed in their twelve years of education
in relation to current and emerging societal challenges. Creativity and
innovation was of no particular importance in their long and tedious hiatus in
our education institutions.
This scenario was more vivid when
you in-calculated that as a nation, as we grappled with our desire to be a food
sufficient and agricultural produce exporter, we had only a handful of agricultural
experts coming out of our universities and no agricultural expert to speak of at
the age of eighteen, all this in the face our poor turn over from secondary to
university. This meant that the majority
of children going through our education system were wasted when they could have
been used to address our challenges as a country. Another grim example of our
failure to plan and ready ourselves for our dreams as a nation was our meager
investment in education in technology. While we were busy planning to build technology
based cities like Konza we had put little thought in advancing the ICT
knowledge base of our children and future work force. So in reality more than half
of those that had undergone the twelve years of our education system had never
touched a computer. The best we had come to some level of visionary management
of our ICT dream was the initiative to offer laptops to our children, however this
fell short of a comprehensive program of intensive specialized training in
ICT.
Social and economic disparities
in our Kenyan populace also ensured that our education system produced a
loop-sided education spectrum over the socio-economic composition of our
populace. Whether intentionally or unintentionally the education system ensured
that the rich got the best of eight years of primary education, which allowed them
to access the majority of positions in national secondary schools which had the
best facilities and in the end these children of the rich filled positions in
our public universities. From infancy the poor in our society were destined for
mediocre education in public primary schools, ill equipped secondary schools
and negligible transition into universities. This situation was even more disadvantageous
when you considered children from marginalized communities and genders. Who
sadly apart from inadequate opportunities to access education, they had to face
an uphill struggle emanating from inherent incapacitation due to their poverty
stricken geographical location or gender bias.
These were just some of the compelling
challenges that informed the pioneers of the Malibongo education system. This
program hoped to nurture a select number of children in intensive specialized
training in three areas, namely agriculture, ICT and financial management.
These ambitious 9 year program hoped to produce experts in these three fields
able to take up junior management level positions at the innocent age of 21
years old. It would combine some aspect of mainstream education but break away
from it early enough to offer substantial amount of time dedicated to an
intensive pursuit of either of these three subjects. What’s more, all these
would be done by a single all-encompassing institution. Providing seamless
education in one institution from when a pupil is 12 years old to when they are
21 years old.
The Malibongo education program
was started by the building of theses special schools by counties that could
afford to do so. These schools offering 9 years of seamless education were
found in counties that hoped to take up any of the three special subjects i.e.
agriculture, ICT or financial management as the bedrock of their county
economic foundation. So counties that hoped to be ICT hubs like San Francisco,
agriculturally adaptive innovators like the state of Israel or financial
capitals like London had an opportunity to strategically churn out experts in
these three fields. It started with harvesting of the brightest children at the
age of 12 years from poor and marginalized communities. This meant that
children in standard 6 from schools found in urban poor areas, rural and remote
regions of the country sat for a special examination to determine the brightest
children who would be eligible for this program. Those who were successful
would be enrolled in Malibongo schools that offered fully sponsored and totally
free education in highly equipped boarding institutions.
The first two years of the Malibongo
education program would see the children take up an additional three subjects modeled
around agriculture, ICT and financial management. They would at the end of these
two years sit for the mainstream end of primary education examination (KCPE) in
addition to being examined in the three special subjects. This allowed for those
after 2 years would wish for one reason or another want to revert back to
mainstream education system and join regular secondary schools. So children in Malibongo
schools studied and got examined after 2 years in 8 subjects as opposed to 5
subjects found in regular primary school. From this examination after two years,
the students were then divided depending on the subject they had performed best
in from the three special subjects. So that in their next three years in the Malibongo
education program they would be required to study only one special subject that
they had performed best in addition to the mainstream secondary education
subjects. They would have an expedited secondary education whereby it would
take them 3 years instead of 4 years in secondary school. This group would also
be eligible to sit for end of secondary schooling national examination (KCSE) together
with sub topics of the one special subject they had specialized in for the three
years. This also allowed those who wanted to revert back to regular schooling
at this stage to do so.
Now the last 4 years of their
education would be intensive specialized educational training in the one
special subject, be it in agriculture, ICT or financial management. Using the
same sub-topics model they had used in their last three years, they would
continue in this manner while majoring in the sub-topic they were best in. These
four years which would be equivalent to an under graduate course would see them
graduate from Malibongo education system as experts in their said fields. Graduates
from this program were fully equipped to be absorbed by national/county civil
service, the private sector as well as self employed entrepreneurs in their
field of specialization. Where need be they would continue with their education
by enrolling for masters courses in regular universities. The Malibongo
education system allowed for counties to produce experts at a fairly young age
in areas that they hoped to advance their counties in. The Malibongo education
system also addressed the unequal transition from primary schools, to secondary
and to university based on socio-economic backgrounds of students as well as
addressed counties unique human resource needs. Other outstanding qualities of
the Malibongo education system was emphasis on using teaching models that
nurtured free thought, innovation, self discovery, self reliance and self
starters as its core principals and functioning inspirations.
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