By Caleb Simba
Education CS Fred Matiang’i is now moved to Interior docket, Uhuru will appoint a substansive Education CS soon after many stakeholders including Provate University owners complained. What is the lesson we get here?
1. Being reformist is great but one should not be over zealous. Matiangi had reached a point when his toes were surely getting out of his shoes
2. Listen to experts. In many cases, Matiangi ignored experts in education sector yet himself is not a a career teacher. For example, he was too eager to release example results too early to please his ego while not caring about fundamentals such as moderating exams. For two years now, half of Kenyan students have failed in national exams, something that is usually avoided through moderation.
3. Don’t kill Kenyans businesses. Matiangi was killing private universities in Kenya by promoting mass failures at secondary school levels. The private universities moaned bitterly when Matiangi insisted that only those with C+ should be admitted for parallel degree. The same attitude was displayed when Matiangi stopped private book sellers from doing business with government and not giving the investors a chance to explain their position
4. Don’t let too many cries. Even as the reform is exiting, reformist should be conscious about the cries of those they affect. If teachers are crying, parents are crying, innocent students are crying, business owners are crying, then God is bound to listen to such cries. The voice of the people is the voice of God.
Lastly, how far can Kenyans tolerate serious reforms? The exit of Matiangi, as it was for Michuki at transport docket, speaks volumes. And will Matiangi have the zeal and guts to initiate major reforms in our deeply rotten National police service and the security sector? Will he, for example, stop traffic police from taking bribes all over and remove those painful roadblocks? We don’t think so. He has leant his lesson. In other parts of the world, Matiangi would simply…. Succumb…. This might be the end of Dr Fred Matiang’i Enkororo.
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