If your fruit trees don’t bear fruit, do you uproot all the trees? I’d like to think not. Wouldn’t you try to figure out what could be contributing to this and deal with it? If you have a farmhand, perhaps you could start your investigation there. You might find they’ve not been taking care of the trees as they ought to. Of course if the situation doesn’t improve, as a last resort, you cut down those trees.
As a country, Kenya has a tendency to cut down trees as soon as they show signs of any issue. The tree is down and that is that we assume. Then we plant a new tree in its place which is an expensive venture, and then it shows similar traits to the last tree and so we cut it down and the cycle goes on and on.
The 8-4-4 system has been faulted so passionately, you’d think it was written by the Devil himself. Calls for the system to be scrapped and replaced have been made and considered. I was a beneficiary of 8-4-4 and I do agree it has a few glitches. However, I don’t believe scrapping it is a solution. The changing of systems is a priority for the government that will be governing Kenya at least ten years from now. Currently, we should focus on how to level the education playing field. Our public schools are understaffed with dilapidated buildings and lack of amenities. How does a system change resolve those pressing issues? It will not matter if the system is changed if there are not enough teachers and they are not motivated enough to teach it well.
We lost to Nigeria again. A lot of Kenyans, including myself sadly, are not surprised. Kenya has talented players. If they weren’t talented, the English Premier League wouldn’t be calling for some of them. They put up a fight and only lost by one goal so it wasn’t a humiliating defeat. The Kenyan team has potential but potential doesn’t win games. We could blame the coach and he could get fired as those before him have. But let’s be honest with ourselves, the real problem isn’t the coach but the management of football in the country. Our grassroots scouting is poor and our training facilities are poorer. It’s going to take an intentional strategy to grow our football. This means serious investment and with the right people at the helm.
Apparently, we have one of the best constitutions in the world. Well, a lot of good that has done us! Parliament has gone rogue with gross arm twisting of the Executive and disdain of the Kenyan people. We can fight back or we can begin a downward spiral into an abyss of greed that we may never recover from. It just goes to show that perhaps the constitution we had wasn’t the biggest problem. We tamed the Executive and created a monster of a Legislature. Our biggest issue at the end of the day is in our choice of leaders.
There a lot of great proposals that envision this country at its best. We’ve read vision 2030 and of ICT Master Plan and heard talk of building football stadiums and academies and film studios and art centers. That all sounds so grand but proposals must be implemented for them to be worth celebrating. I say it again, the structures are in place. They are not the problem. The problem is the people that are at the helm of implementation and management. Those entrusted to take care of our trees are sleeping on the job!
As Kenyans, we must take an active role in if and how things are being implemented and if the structures that are already in place are being adequately used. Our grandfathers and fathers wrote master plans that lie in dust in a corner somewhere half implemented or not implemented at all. Are we going to let the same thing happen with our generation and have our grand children ask us, “Is it true that Kenya could have been like Singapore?†The choice is ours. We’ve arrived at a fork in the road.