5 July 2009
editorial
Nairobi — When this year's secondary school headteachers ended in Mombasa at the weekend, one of the enduring debates in education cycles resurfaced but was not concluded, namely the desirability of abolishing the quota system of secondary school admission.
This system was introduced in the mid-1980s and stipulates that provincial schools should admit 85 per cent of their students from their localities.
National school, however, enrol equal number students from each district in a system crafted to ensure equity.
Proponents of the quota system for provincial schools argue that since it is the locals who built the institutions, it is only fair that their children benefit from the sweat of their labours.
The policy was introduced at a time when the government started withdrawing support to schools and offloading that responsibility onto parents and local communities.
This was one of the hallmark of the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) pushed through the 1980s and 1990s by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which policy ran aground because of the pain it inflicted on struggling economies across the world.
Critics, however, have argued, and rightly so, that if there is one way in which we systematically promote ethnicity and undermine national cohesion, this is it.
Locking children to their local institutions from primary to secondary school, and only allowing them to interact freely at university disadvantages them in many ways.
They do not get exposure about the country's diversity. Nor do they get a chance early in life to forge relationships with those from other backgrounds.
Even the argument that it is the locals who put up provincial schools is unconvincing. Besides the physical facilities, other resources such as teachers, education administrators and examiners, who serve these schools, are provided by the government and paid by taxpayers.
At any rate, in recent years, the government has reverted to the past practice of providing grants to schools for capital development.
Under the affordable secondary school initiative launched last year, government provides funds for tuition and other recurrent expenses to all schools.
At a time when issues of equity, fairness, diversity and national cohesion dominate public discourse, any policy that goes to the contrary, like the quota system, must be discarded.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
