Wesley, Firstly, I concur that the situation as currently stands is a perfect recipe for national disaster-accumulated idle youths with no jobs, no incomes, no hope will convert their youthful energies from nothingness to acts such as you outline. [ You forgot to add that they are also ready armies-for-hire at the disposal of politicians' personal interest-assignments.] Find huge government expenditure on education justified since Human Capital is the greatest asset in the “Knowledge Economy” era and as history shows, for example, the little islands called United Kingdom without much natural resources (minerals such as Africa's) grew and remains a global economic leader. They harnessed and export their human capital and culture (e.g. 'Shakespeare') around the world or 'importing' students into the UK. They created markets and demand for British certification, standards, etc and I am certain that at one point or other list members 'boasted' of their 'Britishness' either upon travel there, certification, a gadget (or just a power cable:) - “Made in UK.” My considered opinion is that our youth are not given much space nor support to innovate. Those that insist and persist and make it, are not recognised for their successes. Apparently many officials in government, either conscious or consciously, adopted to evangelize on foreign is best' attitude :-( :-( :-( Fortunately, "Whilst many challenges face young people, undoubtedly the most acute is the inability to access employment – the lack of opportunities to earn a decent and honest living. It is this that drives young people into crime and drugs, and into a general state of hopelessness and despair. The issue of creating employment opportunities for the youth (formal, informal and self employment) needs therefore to be addressed urgently and with the kind of resources, focus and commitment as has been directed at HIV/AIDS. There is need for a “Marshal” plan as was used to re-settle landless people after independence. In fact, an investment in building the capacity of Kenyan youth by targeted interventions and in addressing their specific needs in terms of education, skills training and gainful employment is seen as imperative for national development ... This Strategic Plan offers a coherent, ambitious but realizable road map to address this and other challenges facing young people" 3.3.8 Information and Communication Technology Information and Communication Technology (ICT) may arguably be the most powerful tool for social and economic change. Rapid and continuing growth and development in ICT is transforming the ways in which youth live and work. Using internet for example, youth can get access to both domestic and international education and job opportunities on line. They can also share interests with peers and with the YEDF, can even advertise their products and get market information on any business of their choice. Due to lack of access to information and communication technology (ICT) especially in rural areas, youth cannot exploit their career, business and education opportunities. There is need for MOYA to take advantage of benefits associated with ICT to foster youth development. http://www.youthaffairs.go.ke/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&... - - - Wish MOYA's strategic objectives are realised in 2010 >> and beyond >> regards, a. On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Akich Kwach <kwach@archway-productions.com> wrote:

Daktari Ndemo, As one of the concerened parents and citizens, I must admit the truth can be sometimes very bitter especially when you compare the qaulifications of public primary school teachers with that of private schools. The disparity is even worse when you look at the rural schools. On the issue of whether we need the KCPE exams, I would request you to pose that question to your couterpart at the MoE Prof Karega and share with us his opinion, whether personal or official.

Cheers and Happy New Year

Akich Kwach

----- Original Message ----- From: <bitange@jambo.co.ke> To: "wesley kirinya" <kiriinya2000@yahoo.com> Cc: "Skunk Works" <skunkworks@my.co.ke>; "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>; "ke-users" <ke-internetusers@bdix.net> Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 1:46 PM Subject: Re: [ke-internetusers] Re: [kictanet] KNEC giving candidates,parents a raw deal

Dear Wesley, No one should fail an exam because we have nowhere to take them if they passed.  Already we have B grade students who are not getting into Universiry.

Every year we get similar concerns but no one has ever asked if indeed we need KCPE exams.  To date I do not know the objective of this exam.  If our promlem just like everybody else is literacy, then we only need the KCSE exams.  The assumption here is that by the time someone sits for KCSE, they would be literate and mature enough to consider options.  At KCPE level, I am afraid we keep on increasing our illiteracy levels the moment 250,000 fail to proceed further.

In my view we all have failed to analyse this problem objectively.  Media keeps on reporting but not analysing the problems.  Citizens continue to complain and not making proposals to the Government.  The KNUT, parents, politicians have subjected the Ministry into crisis mode instead of reforming the sector.  KNUT knows that at least one third of teacheers in Primary Public Schools cannot pass or did not pass KCPE.  Then we ask why Private Schools perform better?

Ndemo.

...

I'm concerned about the hundreds of thousands of students that will miss high school. Last year 250,000 missed it. Over a five year period, this adds up to more than a million, in a country whose population is about 40 million!

Out of those who go to high school, only a handful end up in university. Someone should do a sturdy on the loss to our economy. The government spends lots on money to educate 250,000 people annually who will not get to high school. With our current systems, most of these 250,000 will not get descent employment/stable sources of income. Most of them come from rural areas, which are the areas that need serious development and skilled man-power to drive the development. If I opened a branch of my company in some rural area of Kenya, who will I employ? Even if I employ some people, they would be threatened by the Mungiki-types (children who join gangs in order to extort money)

We need every child in Kenya, willing to go to school, to be able to archieve at least Diploma level. Without that, we should forget vision 2030 and competing with India and other Asian countries! The Chinese will continue building our roads, as Kenyans sweep them with brooms, not even specialized machines!

I would like to bring in a different perspective as to the low performance, which someone mentioned as seriously wrong. What would happen if most students passed their exams, especially now with record numbers enrolling in schools? Where will they go? You would have students with B grades missing high school. That would be a great embrassment to goverment.

If money is available to buy fleets of new cars (which dont really add to our GDP), surely there should be money for better quality of education for our children (which definately adds to our GDP).

This is a national disaster.

O~(

--- On Wed, 12/30/09, Akich Kwach <kwach@archway-productions.com> wrote:

From: Akich Kwach <kwach@archway-productions.com> Subject: Re: [kictanet] KNEC giving candidates, parents a raw deal To: kiriinya2000@yahoo.com Cc: kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke Date: Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 9:39 AM

Gentlemen, Thanks for sharing your concerns. I would agree with MM and Zachary because KNEC ought to have known every candidate and parents would be interested in getting their results at the earliest hour and should have tested the system's capacity ahead of time. It is sad upto this hour, I spent on SMS three times and no reply yet. If such trends continue, the ICT investments might just be a wate of public funds and citizens might lose faith in the so called e-Govt. I would humbly request the PS, Dr Bitange and the ICT Board to intervene and find out what transpired at the KNEC system.

For the parents who had 2009 candidates, I am concerned with the general national perfomance taking into account that subjects such as SST where candidates usually score high marks recorded poor performance, something is not right somewhere.

WISHING YOU A HAPPY 2010

Akich Kwach

----- Original Message ----- From: "mureithi" <mureithi@summitstrategies.co.ke> To: <kwach@archway-productions.com> Cc: <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2009 6:43 PM Subject: Re: [kictanet] KNEC giving candidates, parents a raw deal

...

Thanks barrack For the candidate and their family they interacted with the ict system and the interface was the sms and the web. We should not hide behind huge traffic because the phenomena and the time is known and the implications. Another terrible failure is that i and many thousands kenyans paid upfront to the ict system for a service that was not delivered

____________ Muriuki Mureithi Summit Strategies Ltd sent from cellphone

________________ Reply Header ________________ Subject: Re: [kictanet] KNEC giving candidates, parents a raw deal Author: Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com> Date: 29th December 2009 12:51

MM,

I guess it's a bit premature to blame the System, the problem stems from how the whole announcement was managed, it was improper for the Ministers handlers to say the results would be available on the site immediately after the speech, with the anxiety that had been going on i'm sure even the best servers might not have handled the hits, no wonder the systems were unable to cope, however this serves as a lesson to KNEC, i am sure they will do better in 2010.

Happy New Year !

On 12/29/09, mureithi <mureithi@summitstrategies.co.ke> wrote:

...

Zachary This was the great opportunity for the ict system to prove its value to our society. It failed miserably to just serve less than 1 percent of the population and had to walk to schools. Zain however stood tall and 2228 worked. ____________ Muriuki Mureithi Summit Strategies Ltd sent from cellphone

________________ Reply Header ________________ Subject: [kictanet] KNEC giving candidates, parents a raw deal Author: Zachary Ochieng <zzachmbir@yahoo.com> Date: 29th December 2009 09:59

Despite the digitisation of exam results by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) and the Ministry of Education, the platform doesn't seem to be working. My daughter is one of the candidates who sat KCPE in November 2009. But more than two hours after the release of the results by Education minister Sam Ongeri, the KNEC website from where the candidates are supposed to check their results remains down. Worse still, the 2228 no. to which candidates should text their index numbers to get results is also not working but continues to consume airtime to the tune of Ksh 20 per SMS. If this is not a rip off, then I don't know the definition, coming as it does at a time when the ministry is reeling from a theft scandal.

One wonders what else the ministry could be hiding. While announcing the top candidates, Ongeri never mentioned the names of their schools. But it is anyone's guess that majority of them are from private schools. Rather than bash the media as he did during the release of the results, Ongeri should tell us what is bedevilling FPE.

Can someone please help? MY daughter has refused to take lunch until she gets her results.

--- Be the change you want to see in the world.

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