Kenyan schools enlisted to battle climate change
Schools are breaking for the April holiday countrywide, but there's a lot that's still happening in the sector. From a school CEO being ousted by angry parents to claims of deceased or retired teachers getting promoted, we've seen it all. We even learned of innovative solutions to unique localized problems such as hyena safety lessons. And as the first school term concluded on Wednesday, education sector stakeholders get to take a much-needed break to reflect on transportation safety challenges among other ongoing developments:
- KUPPET Threatens Nationwide Strike Over TSC Promotions
- Government To Employ 20,000 Teachers By July
- Each Senior School to offer two career pathways for Grades 10-12
SPOTLIGHT
Collaboration to accelerate tree planting through schools
Climate change has been an increasingly hot topic. And this week, Cabinet Secretaries Soipan Tuya (Environment, Climate Change and Forestry) and Ezekiel Machogu (Education) co-chaired an inter-ministerial meeting on collaboration.
With an estimated 17 million learners and 600,000 educators in institutions across the country, a target of growing 35 million trees and producing 300 million seedlings annually, the Ministry of Education is one of the key drivers of the national tree-growing programme.
Machogu revealed that they will seek approval from the National Treasury to allocate 5 per cent of the Education Ministry budget to tree planting.
Kenya's government last year initiated a campaign to plant 15 billion trees by 2032, a move aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions, stopping and reversing deforestation and, restoring 5.1 million hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes through the African Landscape Restoration Initiative.
For context, at the end of 2022, Kenya contributed a stunning 0.22% of the world's total Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions compared to Rwanda's 0.02% or the United States' 11.19% and China's 29.16%. More data is available from the EDGAR database (comparing both GHG and CO2 emissions) and a 'heat map' representation on Wikipedia.
Let's put an eco-friendly pin on that for now.
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HEADLINES
KUPPET Threatens Nationwide Strike Over TSC Promotions: The Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) wants the government to streamline issues of teacher promotion and ensure that the teachers who are due for promotion are promoted amid claims that the TSC promoted dead, retired teachers.
Government To Employ 20,000 Teachers By July: The government is committed to ensuring the teacher-student ratio is realistic and attainable by employing 20,000 more teachers who will address the acute shortage being witnessed in the country.
Each Senior School to offer two career pathways for Grades 10-12: Basic Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang has said the ministry hopes to have each Senior School offering two career pathways for Grade 10 to 12 learners starting 2026. Some national schools will offer up to three career pathways - STEM, humanities and the performing arts, music and athletics.
INSIGHT
Are our students in safe hands on our roads?
Recent road accidents involving students are again bringing focus to the state of Kenya’s transport system. The recent loss of lives of students from Chavakali High School in an accident in Kisumu and students from Kenyatta University in an accident in Voi are just two among an escalating number of deaths on Kenyan roads.
Over 20 students died and 115 were injured in road accidents in the 12 months from April 2023 to March 2024 according to data from Citizen Digital. This only points to a larger problem. More than 1,000 lives have been lost in road accidents since January 2024.
Prior year statistics paint a worrying trend. Road accident fatalities in Kenya stood at over 4,100 in 2023 with 4,690 recorded in 2022 and 4,579 in 2021. Corruption is the biggest contributor to the violation of traffic laws. In turn, these contribute to this unending cycle of what could be avoidable deaths.
We’ve seen many transport sector reform campaigns catalyzed by the alarming loss of these young lives among the thousands of others. Must this unfortunate repeat tragedy be the call to action year after year?
The education sector has time and time again shown its value as a strategic contributor to key government initiatives. This sector is one through which we can institute behaviour change at a national scale through joint effort. This isn’t a problem that will be solved by any single entity or institution. It requires culture change which starts with individual responsibility. Continuously and with the urgency it deserves, public interest in school transport safety can play a bigger role.
When we ask whether our students are in safe hands, we must acknowledge that they are in the hands of more than just drivers of these vehicles. Solving the problem for everyone will include solving the problem for our students.
NEWS
What else is brewing?
- Mount Kenya University has an ambitious plan to dispatch over 5000 graduates to Germany, sending the first cohort of five nursing apprentices to the European country this week to provide healthcare services.
- A school in Machakos County has introduced 'hyena lessons' to its curriculum as a means to sensitize the students on how to mitigate against hyena attacks. The school’s administrator elaborated that the lessons were necessary as it is located in an area prone to hyena attacks.
- Teacher Service Commission (TSC) has released a circular for an upcoming mandatory training for teachers, secretariat staff and learners in grade eight. The training will be self-sponsored and will cost KES 2,500 per learner.
- Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs Cabinet Secretary Salim Mvurya has urged the Technical University of Mombasa (TUM) to focus on blue economy, mining and technology courses which are market-oriented. He said that the mining, fisheries, blue economy & marine sectors have lucrative opportunities for students.
One-liners
- Schools close as MPs dig in on fund delays [Standard Media]
- Masii Boys High School dormitory razed down by fire [The Star]
- KICD says e-learning key to address teachers' shortage [Standard Media]
- Police save Jonathan Gloag Academy CEO from irate parents [Nation]
REGION
What's happening next door?
[UG] MPs okay phasing out nursing certificate, diploma courses: Uganda's Parliament on Tuesday endorsed the Government's decision to phase out comprehensive nursing certificate and diploma courses in public & private institutions. [Read]
[UG] Schools collaborate to attain quality education: Schools in Uganda are engaging in "twinning programmes" where schools of different backgrounds share practices and resources in a bid to improve performance. [Read]
[TZ] Airtel signs deal with government to offer digital learning platform secondary schools: The project will facilitate teaching and access to digital content in approximately 3,000 government schools within the five years of implementation. Airtel 'Smart Wasomi' will also help teachers easily access content using tablets provided by the government through the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology. [Read]
[TZ] Hire teachers on contract basis to deal with shortage, councils told: Local government authorities have been told to engage teachers in contract employment, as a strategy to deal with the shortage of educators afflicting many schools in their respective areas. [Read]
[RW] Ntare School Rwanda starts receiving applications: Academic activities will kick off in September, with the "best school in Africa" welcoming up to 80 Grade 7 students each in two distinct streams: the Entrepreneurial International Stream and the Global Plus-STEM Stream. [Read]
RANDOM
Did you know?
- Generally speaking, each additional year of schooling increases the individual's earnings up to 10%.
- School facilities’ maintenance impacts the physical, educational, and financial foundation of the school organization and therefore the students.
That wraps up this week's edition. We'd love to hear your feedback on how we can improve this newsletter for you. Share your thoughts with us & we'll see you next week. Until then, stay informed and let us plant some trees.