Boy do I feel sorry for secondary students here in Kenya. The secondary teachers have been told to go back to school (they were striking in support of the primary teachers), but the schools we deal with haven’t called the kids back to school….why you ask, we have no idea. The primary teachers however are still on official strike. Anyway, we have two students (outside C4KK) who are in Form 4-12th grade and this is their final term to “cram” before taking the final exam in the third and last term of the school year. One called me and is quite disturbed because his focus was totally on studying but his school hasn’t started back up and he is looking for alternatives so he isn’t “idle” waiting for the school to reopen.
The schools (from our experience) simply gear their teaching towards passing an exam (Class 8 final test and Form 4 final test). Sometimes the school doesn’t even give us grades for a term because it doesn’t matter what the kid gets during the term, it’s what they get on the final exam. Apparently they don’t understand the concept that if the student isn’t doing well throughout the term they probably won’t do well on the final.
This leads to another reason I feel sorry for the kids….since the schools are totally focused on that one exam there are no other “life” lessons. First let me say I believe parents should raise their children but with the school system here the secondary kids board at school and are therefore raised by their peers (bad, bad situation in my opinion). Even with the student living at school the school staff does not have the ability to raise all those students and teach them morality, ethics, etc. (not going to get into the discussion of what type of morality, etc. they would teach anyway). Again the kids are getting those ideas from their peers, we have approximately 2-3 weeks each term to sit and chat with them and that isn’t much time.
Ok, so what does that mean? I remember way back in the day during junior high we took aptitude tests to see what our likes/dislikes were, what abilities we had and what type of career those would take us. Here the kids have absolutely no idea what comes after high school.
We have a 19 year old (in Form 2-10th grade) who has decided formal education just isn’t for her. Her grades are in the low D range and she has decided not to return to school. She has decided however to attend a technical/vocational school and we totally support her in this decision. But when we asked what area of study she would like to pursue…she had no idea. So we start from scratch in trying to figure out, together, what she may be interested in. And another secondary student (19 in Form 3-11th grade) who has not performed well for over a year (again, low D range) is insisting on continuing with secondary school (of which C4KK does not agree). She may be learning some very hard lessons very quickly and learning to live with the consequences of her decisions.
Since we’ve been with the kids we continually bring up “what happens after high school?” What are their goals for themselves? But with the older kids the talks haven’t had time to sink in (again I believe once the child returns to school they are so focused on their studies they don’t take the time to even think about their future). Now both girls have to decide what to do with their life as young women, not children at a children’s home, in a short period of time.
Please keep these children in your prayers as we strive to show them God’s love through our actions and support. Also prayers for the staff at C4KK who will be handling these situations while we are in the States….although we do have a computer set up for Bosco to communicate with us EVERY DAY!