Imagine you’re travelling from Nairobi to Isiolo. I meet you boarding a mathree that is going to Narok.
So I tell you: with this mathree, you will not reach Isiolo, you will go to Narok. But you tell me: I’ll talk to the manamba and see if we can get to Isiolo anyway.
So the mathree starts moving. You reach Mai Mahiu, you text me: I see that we’re at Mai Mahiu, and it doesn’t make sense. I thought we would go to Isiolo?
You even ask the manamba why you are not heading to Isiolo. The manamba tells you: Hii gari ni ya kuenda Narok. Kama untaka kuenda Isiolo, ushuke, upande gari ingine ya kurudi Nairobi, halafu upande ingine ya kuenda Isiolo.
Then you start shouting at the manamba: after all I put into this trip, you want me to go back to Nairobi? Find out how you will use the fare I paid you to take me to Isiolo. The owner of this mathree told me I can reach Isiolo with this vehicle.
The manamba tells you - I don’t know anything about Isiolo or what mkubwa told you. Kazi yangu ni kufika Narok.
So you call me, hysterical, saying you’re on your way to Narok instead of Isiolo. Then I say: si I told you that that vehicle is going to Narok? What did you expect? Then you say: “yes, I agree that you told me that the vehicle is going to Narok, but I want to go to Isiolo.”
After I while, I start suspecting that something isn’t right. I wonder whether maybe, there’s something you’re not saying. Maybe somebody cheated you that Isiolo is close to Narok. Maybe a business owner in Mai Mahiu has paid for the mathree to stop at his petrol station for an hour so that you can sit and eat there. Maybe you don’t want me to know where you’re going.
That’s CBC.
The issue we’re debating is more than whether it’s good for kids to have only skills and for parents to be involved. The issue is that the vehicle you took is not going to take you where you say you want to go.
We’ve explained competency. We’ve explained why it has to be expensive. We’ve explained why there’s no option but to have more tests. We’ve even told you what teachers from other countries have said.
But you still want to reach Isiolo with a mathree headed for Narok. Some of us teachers have tried to tell you that the owner has not given us instructions to go to Isiolo. But you listen to the business owners and say we’re lying, and it’s our fault that the car is not going there. Meanwhile the car owner has threatened to fire us if we try to take the mathree to Isiolo.
This isn’t about CBC any more. It’s about a collective dissonance. I’ve now started to wonder whether Kenyans really want education from the school system. And for the last year, that’s what I’ve been reading about and asking myself: what exactly was this system designed for, and what do people want from it?
I think what we really want from the schools is a prestigious place in the economy for our kids. But we can’t are say it that way because we know that it’s an unfair economy that will necessarily discriminate against the majority. So we keep saying we want education, or we want to go to Isiolo, but really, we want something else that we know is unfair, so we can’t name it.