By: Lydia Apiyo from Kenya
When talking about education, we first ask ourselves, what is education? And what is its impact to our society? And what is education reform? Very simple.
Education is an activity that involves instructing and giving direction with an objective of imparting knowledge. This can either be done formally or informally depending on the context and the intended outcome of the knowledge imparted. This clearly mean that education started during our forefather’s time and it has been evolving with time from apprenticeship and observation to the western education that we have today, that puts the students in class and test their intellectual capability rather than observation skills.
Formal education has proven to be more impactful since its sheds off illiteracy, increases reasoning level of an individual, exposes them to their career world thereby increasing their supremacy financially, emotionally and even spiritually.
Now talking about how much education has reformed over these years, let us get back to the days when many poor children were only left to the streets jumping over fences to steal in order to sustain themselves, you will probably agree with me that there has been an immense change due to the introduction of free primary education to these poor children and education funds e.g. bursaries and the Government loan offered at the post-secondary institutions e.g. Helb.
Another evident reform in education is the change in the study curriculum where the teachers or instructors try to break the classroom monotony by engaging the learners in outside activities e.g. co-curricular activities. By doing this, the learners are given a safe space to identify with their talents which can also be their future careers e.g. playing football. This reform has proven to be important since it helps the learners to have direction in life and work hard towards achieving their goals and vision
Another change that has come with this reformation is introduction of technology in the learning sector. Use of computers, laptops, I-pads and other electronics has helped a lot in the education sector especially in the e-learning sector where students can learn through the internet or rather, they can conduct online classes with their tutors and attend to other commitments instead of attending classes physically on a daily basis. This has also help the institution to adopt better data systems that provide both teachers and parents of the student progress
All these steps towards reform in the learning sector is to ensure that the knowledge offered suits the societal changing needs and demands and that it accomplishes the bottom-up approach ,whereby, the learners have more authority and say over their life and future without being compelled towards achieving what is above their capability.
In Kenya, education has undergone several reforms starting from the Ominde commission in 1964 up the basic education curriculum framework we have in place that intend to offer to learners a high quality education at an affordable price. This was also to facilitate national unity ,mutual social responsibility and promote innovative ideas and technological development which I partly agree that have been achieved so far