I would like to share something with Prof Jacob Kaimenyi, and anyone close to him, please pass my message to him. If I summon enough courage and wisdom, I will write to him. By the way, life can be surreal. I interviewed Prof Kaimenyi in 2002 while I was a student at the School of Journalism, University of Nairobi. The school brings out a practical newspaper and students are required to get stories. Prof Kaimenyi was my story in 2002. At the time, he was either the Dean or the Chairman at the Dental School. Anyway - here is what I would like to say to the Professor and his team. I am concerned by his pronouncement that they will no longer register candidates below the age of 14 for the KCPE exam. You see, I am an affected parent. My daughter turned 12 in December 2013 and is due to sit her exams when she is 12 years 11 Months old. If the rule of not sitting exams till one is 14 years old is implemented to the letter, Baraka would need to repeat class 8. How will we explain to her the law considering that: 1. The school admitted her in class 1 without any scruples. 2. No one has ever raised any issue about her age during her years of schooling. 3. She has been a well performing pupil and has never gone beyond position 5 in all her years of schooling, and has often been no 1 or 2. 4. She is a sensitive child and since last night when Prof Kaimenyi made the pronouncement on TV, the girl has been very anxious. I told her to worry only about things she can change and leave the things that she cant change to those who can. 5. She has been such a key pupil in her school in terms of leading the scouts and as a prefect at some point that repeating in the same school would be an impossibility if she is to retain her confidence. How do you make such a child repeat? Would it not have a psychological effect on her? I think the best place to enforce this rule is at admission to class one. During my childhood, this law used to be enforced. You would be made to touch your ear with the hand from the opposite side of your body and if you did not manage, you were not admitted. But the law has gone silent for so many years. Now, once a child is in the system, forcing them to repeat will have the same psychological effects we try to avoid when we say that children who do not perform so well should repeat a class. Now let me say something about maturing. I think people mature at different times. Lets take the example of girls starting their periods.( Sorry, I am a father of girls!). Some girls start as early as 10 years while others wait till they are 14 years. Nature teaches us that there is a range in which certain physiological and psychological changes occur. Marriage, starting jobs etc. All these things start at different times for different people. Secondly, although I dont think my daughter is precocious, I think there are highly gifted children who are precocious and who deserve to be taken to school earlier than usual or to be managed in a different way. A person like Bill Gates was made to jump some classes because he was always ahead of his age. The same with Steve Jobs. There is a big debate in Kenya today about how we nurture very bright children. If you take a very clever child who catches things quickly and force them to stay behind due to age, you may create someone who becomes a misfit rather than a resource for society. This too should be thought through. So my plea to the good professor and his team is to bear with the children and parents who are already in the system, and push implementation of the above policy from the bottom up so that children do not have to pay for their parents mistakes or ignorance.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 05:57:15 +0000
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