My experience on the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms

The report of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms is out and with it several proposals to address challenges that bedevil the sector.

The report gives approval to the competence-based curriculum and recommends its continuation. It, however, calls for a review of learning areas and content to reduce overload and overlaps.

It also makes recommendations aimed at improving the quality of learning, teacher education and management framework and processes, integration of technology in education, equity and access with a focus on addressing the plight of those in marginalised areas and education for special needs learners.

Other issues addressed are the funding of both basic and higher education, including recommendations for minimum essential packages for basic education schools and revised capitation, and the introduction of a new funding formula for students in higher learning institutions.

In the higher education space, the report seeks to improve technical and vocational education and training by enhancing linkages with industry, providing for recognition of prior learning, addressing its curriculum and assessment, improving support to vocational training centres and addressing the welfare of TVET trainers.

A similar focus is put on university education, including recommendations that led to the launch of the Open University of Kenya.

I had the privilege of serving as a member of this working party, the third of its kind in the history of the country. Over a period of close to nine months, we traversed the entire country, had discussions with all the key stakeholders in the education sector and witnessed firsthand the key challenges the sector faces, from curriculum content to delivery, financing to infrastructure and governance.

The recommendations we made hopefully will provide the country with a roadmap towards improving the sector due to the critical role that education plays in the development of society.

The process was a true learning one for me. First, public service is rewarding due to the opportunity one gets to help shape policy.

To do so in a sector that has a direct and long-term impact on every member of the Kenyan nation was a true privilege.

My advice for anyone who gets the chance to serve is to take the chance and give your best. You will look back with satisfaction if you eventually make proposals that transform the area you worked on.

Secondly, one must be prepared for long hours of work. For the nine months, it was not possible to engage in any other tasks meaningfully due to the many things that being in the assignment required. It is only by putting in the time that you can make a difference.

Thirdly, policymaking has a lot of vested interests. To come up with workable proposals, one must be able to navigate the interests of various stakeholders.

No stakeholder is too small, nor their interest too insignificant to be ignored. It is only by being alive to these that one can develop feasible and implementable proposals.

The writer is a law professor at the University of Nairobi.