MUST READ: Let’s do away with school bursaries and try other workable alternatives
By Jaymo Wa Thika
Education is a human right and is central to achieving many other sustainable development outcomes. It is also a key driver for reducing poverty, fostering economic growth, achieving gender equality, and social development.
Some of the factors that prevent our children from getting quality
education nowadays include lack of relevant learning materials, school fees,
uniforms and other essential learning enhancers that millions of families are
unable to afford.
This was what our late beloved former President Mwai Kibaki
tried to solve when he introduced free primary and secondary education,
benefits of which have never been fully enjoyed by the majority poor in this
country.
It is in the same breath that leaders thought of introducing
scholarships and bursaries to assist bright learners from humble backgrounds,
who could not however afford joining secondary school for lack of fees.
However, issuance of bursaries has since been abused by a
majority of the political leadership and now used as a dangling carrot for
political mileage. In majority of our 290 constituencies and 47 county
governments, the exercise has ended up as a Public Relations (PR) exercise for
the cameras just to build the political careers of those issuing them.
Many a times, those who benefit from these bursaries are
those connected to the powers that be and those in the “good books” of the
political class in question.
The procedure of selecting the deserving cases is majorly a
complete sham. Majority of those who benefit from these bursaries are people who
can afford to pay these fees; their only “poverty” is connection with the
powers that be. This leaves out very many deserving cases.
This explains why we get so many appeals for help to take
poor children to school even after these bursaries have been issued.
I would like to single the manner in which Equity Foundation
identifies beneficiaries for the Wings To Fly Programme, very transparent and
very thorough. Likewise, the Elimu Scholarship Programme, M-PESA Foundation and
many other similar other foundations do a very thorough exercise to identify
deserving cases.
However, the amount of money these organisations have for
the exercise is usually limited and can only benefit just a few students as compared
to the Ksh. 20 million set aside for NG-CDF bursaries per constituency every
year.
Educating these children is investing in our future and we
should not gamble with the future of this country for very short-term selfish
political gains.
It is very unfortunate that in this country, no politician
really loves an independent electorate…. An electorate who will not come to them
for handouts or for petty assistance. Politicians thrive in deficiency and will
always work behind the scenes to ensure that their electorate always have
something to cry home about so that they (the politicians) will rush to them as
the “saviour”.
Politicians prefer the status quo since it benefits them
politically. Yes. They want desperate parents to throng their offices to beg
for bursaries so that once given, they will go home doing the “Firirinda” dance
in praise of this politician and claiming that, were it not for that particular
politician, their children would not have gone back to school.
That is dragging our people into mental slavery….. Simply
infecting our people with this deadly virus known as “Politically Dependency
Syndrome”.
Our Constitution provides for free and compulsory basic
education as a human right for every Kenyan child. Free primary education, for
instance, is not a new policy in Kenya.
Those who schooled in the 1970s can attest to the government
funded Kenya School Equipment Scheme which provided exercise books, textbooks
and stationary to all primary school going children. Under the same scheme, all
public schools had radio sets for the then vibrant radio education programmes.
(READ ALSO: THE MESS IN OUR COUNTRY – WHY I BLAME OUR PARENTS)
The municipal council-aided primary schools also had
watchmen, secretaries, general janitors who cleaned toilets for the kids etc…..
all paid by the local authorities. The schools electricity and water bills were
also settled by the municipal councils.
However, it is in the 1980s and 1990s that things went south
after the introduction of “cost-sharing” which asked parents to pay for their
children’s education. This made education expensive and a preserve of those who
could afford it.
My question is….. What worked then with the Kenya School
Equipment Scheme that cannot work now or be improved upon to benefit all levels
of education from the Early Childhood Education (ECDE) level up to the
university?
It only boils down to political goodwill. It is possible. It
is doable.
Why would government offer bursaries to children born of poor
parents instead of channeling that money directly to learning institutions and
ensuring that education is absolutely free? To put this in a language that you
can understand; This is government giving you government money (bursary) to pay
government school fees. It doesn’t make sense. It is like getting a Ksh. 1,000
note from your left-hand side pocket of your pair of trousers to pay the pocket
on the right-hand side of your pair of trousers.
These so many numerous exchange of hands dealing with the
same money are simply avenues by leaders to gain access of public funds…. These
bureaucracies and bottlenecks were developed through government policies that
were meant to create loopholes to steal from the exchequer.
The government can also make it unattractive for people to
seek bursaries by empowering them to be self-reliant. If one is stable
financially, they will not spend hours on open grounds roasting in the scorching
sun just to receive a Ksh. 2,000 bursary. They would instead prefer to pay from
their own savings and save themselves the shame of begging for bursaries and
losing their dignity in the eyes of their own children.
It’s my personal feeling that bursaries should be done away
with and instead, the government comes up with alternative policies guiding the
channeling of the same money directly to schools in material form, where
possible, rather than in liquid cash.
On the same breath, the government should empower its people
economically and then demand them to pay for their own school fees? They say,
“Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat
for a lifetime.
But will politicians support this? A very BIG NO. Doing so
is working their way to losing a massive voting bloc. They survive through the
creation of a desperate society who believes that politicians are gods and have
answers to all their immediate problems. That is the reason people adore
politicians who feed them on handouts and goodies that only last for hours.
If you critically analyse the kind of programmes that
politicians initiate within their jurisdictions, you will realise that most of
them are skewed towards enclosing the beneficiaries into some cocoons where
will merry-go-round the same economic status forever. Very few politicians work on programmes that
completely transform their people into full economic freedom and if they do,
these programmes only benefit those very close to them, for obvious reasons,
their own political expediency and not for the good of the entire society.
All these are schemes are geared towards enslaving the
masses into voting machines. Politicians only want to use people as tools to
serve the achievement of their (politicians) own ends. Politicians are there to serve their own
interests, not yours. That’s the hard reality.
Politicians are happy to serve a gullible and ignorant
society who easily buys into their mischievous and populist decisions just to
get cheap publicity. Critical thinkers who question political mediocrity are
branded as enemies and politicians will ensure that such people will never sit
near the political table. Politicians feel so comfortable while being
surrounded by their “Yes Sir” supporters who will cheer and clap for them even
when they are walking naked in public.
It’s high time Kenyans woke up from this deep slumber and
start redefining their own destiny and that of future generations. Luckily, the
society is growing younger and more enlightened by the day thanks to the
internet and we should never let such opportunities just fly away without
taking advantage of them.
Let’s start to seriously vet those we entrust into
leadership positions and ensure we only contract those with a vision for the
good of the whole society and not just a few. Kumbuka, Msipojipanga, mtaendelea
tu kupangwa.
Jaymo wa Thika, this time you have talked like ten wise men .
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