What is the biggest challenge to education in Africa? Apart from teachers of course. Their main problem is salary, over looking smaller challenges like insecurity.
I have a few observations,
Providing lesson on radio and tv won’t have a major impact. Once you loose attention, the point is lost and there is no feedback of student back to the teacher. And the teachers are boring.
Private school online teaching is for the rich. You have to pay fees and have around 1gb internet bundle to attend classes. Poor folks, even those in private schools are disadvantaged.
Can parents give their children their smart phones to study for free online or access pdf books? Or its asking too much of the parent.
Parents are the missing link to access of quality education. You can download course material on your smart phone and give it to the child to revise with it, especially math and sciences.
You don’t need fancy laptops, apps, high fees or expensive bundles to assist your child live to his potential.
Problem is you have a lot of teachers who scored C’s and D’s, then they go back to teach these kids, especially those in high school. What do you expect someone who scored a C and a D to teach a kid in high school kama hao wenyewe walipata C na D. They also don’t get paid well and thus take out there frustrations on these kids. I got an A and i can tell you what i went through in order to get that A, it was not worth it.
We can emulate Finland’s education system, where there is less emphasis on tests and homework, coz for instance nilikuwa nachapwa na mwalimu ju pass mark ni 80% but nimepata 60. I think this is barbaric. Teachers in FInland get paid VERY WELL, sio kama hawa wetu. I told myself when the time comes and I have a kid, what happens in school stays in school, what happens at home stays at home, otherwise if a teacher decides to give my kids homework pia mimi nitampa vyombo aende aoshee shuleni. My kids do their work in school, when they come home it’s strictly family time.
Revise the syllabus, teach people practical skills, meaningful practical skills. In the west very young teens can sometimes code and create apps, in most schools in Kenya for computer class mnafunzwa kuchora mouse, CPU, keyboard and other irrelevant things. What kind of nonsense is that. Time ya history before i dropped it i was taught about early man sijui how the caveman used to hunt, why should i care about that though?
Also we can pay teachers better, you can make all kinds of changes but if you dont pay teachers better then all is in vain. Pay a teacher well and those people who got A’s and B’s will be willing to teach, but instead they go work for companies na hawa watu wa D minus ndiyo wanabaki kufunza. Some teachers are good but the bulk of them are not.
But if there is one thing i have learnt about Kenya, we can rant and rage about the problem but the odds of ti being fixed are slim to none, and slim is on vacation.
The more I think of it, I’m not too keen on sending my kids to regular school once they become of age. I’d rather they learn at home, and maybe they can attend music, arts, science or math sessions a few hours per week. Before the pandemic I noticed that kids were being stressed out academically for no good reason. I like the idea of online school, and since play is important for growth, perhaps they can play with church kids once a week. I think I’ll be very selective, coz there are kids out there who come from amoral homes and teach others their bad behavior and/or bully them. Education deserves a total overhaul where parents must become more involved.
Learning at home would be better.Basic math is essential, finance is definitely essential and crucial in life, kids dont learn anything about finance, about APR, about interest rates in high school, but the first thing they are given when they go to college are student loans and credit cards, they are setting these kids up for failure! They dont want kids to be smart with money. Even in honors classes they teach you finance but its the kind of finance that is geared towards businesses, not personal finance.
The other thing is when it comes to issuing of funds to the schools, the funds are issues based on the area the school is in, they look at the property value and based on that they determine how much money to give to the school. So if a school is in detroit and another is in Ann Arbor, the one in Detroit is gonna get very little money compared to the one in Ann arbor, and so this is basically punishing kids for something they have no control over, they are gonna get older textbooks, they’re not given the same lunches, same after-school program. And so students in schools in poor regions don’t amount to much most of the times.
And kids being creative, one of the things parents need to focus on is Arts and music, but unfortunately these are normally the first things to get cut in school. I imagine its coz they dont want kids to be creative, they dont want people thinking for themselves, they dont want entrepreneurs, they want sheep.
Best thing you can do for your kids, teach them. You have plenty experience in this world.
I think in Kenya, a major problem is the syllabus and evolution of,to reflect changes on the world scene. Joining the dots in the content as a whole seems to be quite a problem with result being more of rote learning to regurgitate pricinples and formulae,than application.
Delivery methods should also be addressed to enable different types of learners.
Practical exposure to real world job scenarios would also help;so that students have a better idea of the professions they’re interested in,as far as practicable.
Pia kids being taught analytical skills from a young age,where they can question what they are learning and defend their arguments… respectfully of course.I think this would leave them thinking more about the subject matter,and nurturing an interest in it/understanding its application.
I don’t think growing up I had that privilege,and the teachers word was the law,even when they couldn’t tell their head from their ass in regards to the subject as had been said above
There are several educational challenges in Africa hinders the learning of students. Firstly, most people in Africa are moderatly poor hence they can not educate their kids properly. This is because, the best schools are private and boarding schools which are very expensive. Only the rich can meet the standards of such institutions. The puplic schools do not provide the required content of knowledge tha a student should have, the teachers do very little that corresponds to their little salary. According to studies, in most cases, the female students are always less compared to the male students in most schools in Africa. This is because of the early pregnacies that leads to early marriages among the students.