There’s black smoke in schools? Quick, get rid of the system!

It is a situation that calls for sober reflection, and this is perhaps what is most lacking in the current situation.

All sorts of explanations have been put forward to explain the madness. Sycophants from the ruling Jubilee coalition have pointed fingers at the opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD), saying that students had learnt from parents and leaders that problems should be resolved through violent means.

This, of course, is in reference to CORD’s recent demonstrations calling for reform of the electoral system – protests that were often marked with street violence and bonfires.

Others have pointed a finger at parents, saying they had neglected their roles in pursuit of money and careers. They were also teaching their teenage sons and daughters wrong values and setting a bad example in their own lives.

Teachers have not escaped blame, either. Following failed attempts at getting a decent pay rise, they are said to be a highly demoralized lot. Their disillusionment has led them to do the basic minimum necessary in their jobs, dividing their attention between teaching and other business pursuits.

The truth may be quite different, although each of these reasons has definitely played a part. The rot in Kenya’s education system is historical: It is systemic and pervasive, a reflection of the rot in the rest of society.
While the impact of a decaying education system may not be felt as immediately as, say, a poor banking or aviation sector, the end result is worse.

This is because the wellbeing of all other sectors is dependent on the quality of the education system. Unfortunately, this sector has been largely neglected since independence, and the pent-up issues are only now beginning to boil over.

And while Kenya’s case is acute, the neglect is by no means restricted to it alone; the whole region’s education systems are nothing to write home about.

More than 50 years after independence, most of the famous schools and colleges are those started by the colonialist regimes. Investment in the education sector has not kept up with increasing populations and the rise of the middle-class.

The result has been the dilution of standards, congested and unhygienic dormitories, and large numbers of students that have stretched laboratory and other learning facilities to the limit. In these conditions, learning ceases to be fun and becomes dreary – a prison of sorts that students merely endure because of the promise of a better future.

Given the emphasis on paper qualifications in the system, moreover, cheating naturally enters the equation. Students will do anything to achieve good grades in examinations, right up to undergraduate and postgraduate levels, but with little to show by way of the critical thinking ability needed to drive communities forward.

What, then, is the way out of this quagmire? Quite convincingly, a lot of stakeholders have argued for the reinstatement of corporal punishment in schools. Needless to say, this argument glosses over the serious problems that have created desperation in learners.

It would be akin to calling for recolonization of Africa as a solution to dictatorship and bad governance, or wife-beating as a solution to neglect of wifely duties. No, child abuse – which corporal punishment really is – cannot solve the problems in schools.

Radical solutions are called for that depart from mere reform of these rotten education systems. The present education systems inherited from colonialists are designed to produce conformists: Robots who are fit to work in industry but cannot think for themselves or question the values that have been passed down to them.

They cannot free themselves from the shackles of religion, and accept the socio-economic and political status quo as sacrosanct.

Yet, the value of a good education can only be seen in critical thinking; this is exactly what we should be inculcating in the youth. Inevitably, such an education will lead to the questioning and casting away of many social values and systems.

This, in turn, will be seen as dangerous and fiercely resisted by those who unfairly benefit from existing inequalities.

In an age of rapid advancement in information technology, there must be ways of effectively disseminating knowledge outside the traditional systems.

With public schools in such a dismal state, the skills of so many jobless teachers and youth can be profitably utilized through well-supervised home or communal schooling arrangements, especially at lower levels. But first, we must accept the obvious: The current system is useless; the emperor has no clothes!