Dear Dr. Ndemo, Wesley, Skunk Works and all,

We will take up this topic in our January issue 2010 of Digital Age Journal. Our theme is Career, and since the career for almost 100% of humans starts in primary school, I would appreciate if you and others could maybe start analyzing the problem - just right here - then we could maybe have a meeting discussing what we shall do.

I am so much in agreement with the statement that citizens complain too much. We as citizens and business owners in Kenya shall promote, strengthen, propose solutions, and put our beard in the drawer together with our own proposals !! I mean - we shall propose solutions, but we shall then also back up our own solutions with action.

Churchill said this very clearly:

Ask not what the country can do for you.

Ask what you can do for your country...

We shall promote, support, backup our governments positive efforts, instead of electing the wrong politicians and then complain when it goes all wrong.

I have a profound attitude in life that if you are dissatisfied with something, then of course you should mention it, but never without taking responsibility for implementing a solution. There is always a way !! If you for some reason end up working with someone who cannot see further than to their own pocket - then just drop working with them... There will always be someone you can work with, who see the light - or whom even are the candle-holders themselves.

Look at it from this side here: Yes, there is corruption in Kenya. But darn. There is corruption everywhere in the world. I am from Denmark, one of the so called least corrupt nations. Let me tell you - there is corruption there too !! It has just been hidden much better - thats all. In stead of dwelling on that maybe 20% of your tax revenue goes to corruption - then dwell on that 80% then goes to the right things !!!!!

I propose that you send me an e-mail with your name and mobile. Send it to: primaryIT@digitalageinstitute.com and sign up for a meeting where we are going to discuss and take the Primary School Education - focused on IT - a step further - and take up that debate. If the contributions are serious, we will print a multi page article about this in our January issue !! I would expect to call the meeting to order on January 18th, 2010 on our location. Write about what you want to contribute with on the meeting.

Kind regards

Digital Age Institute Ltd.

David Svarrer

----- Original Message -----

From: bitange@jambo.co.ke

To: wesley kirinya

Cc: Skunk Works ; KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions ; ke-users

Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 1:46 PM

Subject: Re: [ke-internetusers] Re: [kictanet] KNEC giving candidates, parents a raw deal

Dear Wesley,
No one should fail an exam because we have nowhere to take them if they
passed. Already we have B grade students who are not getting into
Universiry.

Every year we get similar concerns but no one has ever asked if indeed we
need KCPE exams. To date I do not know the objective of this exam. If
our promlem just like everybody else is literacy, then we only need the
KCSE exams. The assumption here is that by the time someone sits for
KCSE, they would be literate and mature enough to consider options. At
KCPE level, I am afraid we keep on increasing our illiteracy levels the
moment 250,000 fail to proceed further.

In my view we all have failed to analyse this problem objectively. Media
keeps on reporting but not analysing the problems. Citizens continue to
complain and not making proposals to the Government. The KNUT, parents,
politicians have subjected the Ministry into crisis mode instead of
reforming the sector. KNUT knows that at least one third of teacheers in
Primary Public Schools cannot pass or did not pass KCPE. Then we ask why
Private Schools perform better?

Ndemo.

> I'm concerned about the hundreds of thousands of students that will miss
> high school. Last year 250,000 missed it. Over a five year period, this
> adds up to more than a million, in a country whose population is about 40
> million!
>
> Out of those who go to high school, only a handful end up in university.
> Someone should do a sturdy on the loss to our economy. The government
> spends lots on money to educate 250,000 people annually who will not get
> to high school. With our current systems, most of these 250,000 will not
> get descent employment/stable sources of income. Most of them come from
> rural areas, which are the areas that need serious development and skilled
> man-power to drive the development. If I opened a branch of my company in
> some rural area of Kenya, who will I employ? Even if I employ some people,
> they would be threatened by the Mungiki-types (children who join gangs in
> order to extort money)
>
> We need every child in Kenya, willing to go to school, to be able to
> archieve at least Diploma level. Without that, we should forget vision
> 2030 and competing with India and other Asian countries! The Chinese will
> continue building our roads, as Kenyans sweep them with brooms, not even
> specialized machines!
>
> I would like to bring in a different perspective as to the low
> performance, which someone mentioned as seriously wrong. What would happen
> if most students passed their exams, especially now with record numbers
> enrolling in schools? Where will they go? You would have students with B
> grades missing high school. That would be a great embrassment to
> goverment.
>
> If money is available to buy fleets of new cars (which dont really add to
> our GDP), surely there should be money for better quality of education for
> our children (which definately adds to our GDP).
>
> This is a national disaster.
>
> O~(
>
>
> --- On Wed, 12/30/09, Akich Kwach <kwach@archway-productions.com> wrote:
>
> From: Akich Kwach <kwach@archway-productions.com>
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] KNEC giving candidates, parents a raw deal
> To: kiriinya2000@yahoo.com
> Cc: kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke
> Date: Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 9:39 AM
>
> Gentlemen,
> Thanks for sharing your concerns. I would agree with MM and Zachary
> because KNEC ought to have known every candidate and parents would be
> interested in getting their results at the earliest hour and should have
> tested the system's capacity ahead of time. It is sad upto this hour, I
> spent on SMS three times and no reply yet. If such trends continue, the
> ICT investments might just be a wate of public funds and citizens might
> lose faith in the so called e-Govt. I would humbly request the PS, Dr
> Bitange and the ICT Board to intervene and find out what transpired at the
> KNEC system.
>
> For the parents who had 2009 candidates, I am concerned with the general
> national perfomance taking into account that subjects such as SST where
> candidates usually score high marks recorded poor performance, something
> is not right somewhere.
>
> WISHING YOU A HAPPY 2010
>
> Akich Kwach
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "mureithi"
> <mureithi@summitstrategies.co.ke>
> To: <kwach@archway-productions.com>
> Cc: <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2009 6:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] KNEC giving candidates, parents a raw deal
>
>
>> Thanks barrack
>> For the candidate and their family they interacted with the ict system
>> and the interface was the sms and the web. We should not hide behind
>> huge traffic because the phenomena and the time is known and the
>> implications.
>> Another terrible failure is that i and many thousands kenyans paid
>> upfront to the ict system for a service that was not delivered
>>
>>
>> ____________
>> Muriuki Mureithi
>> Summit Strategies Ltd sent from cellphone
>>
>> ________________ Reply Header ________________
>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] KNEC giving candidates, parents a raw deal
>> Author: Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com>
>> Date: 29th December 2009 12:51
>>
>> MM,
>>
>> I guess it's a bit premature to blame the System, the problem stems from
>> how
>> the whole announcement was managed, it was improper for the Ministers
>> handlers to say the results would be available on the site immediately
>> after
>> the speech, with the anxiety that had been going on i'm sure even the
>> best
>> servers might not have handled the hits, no wonder the systems were
>> unable
>> to cope, however this serves as a lesson to KNEC, i am sure they will do
>> better in 2010.
>>
>> Happy New Year !
>>
>> On 12/29/09, mureithi <mureithi@summitstrategies.co.ke> wrote:
>>>
>>> Zachary
>>> This was the great opportunity for the ict system to prove its value to
>>> our
>>> society. It failed miserably to just serve less than 1 percent of the
>>> population and had to walk to schools. Zain however stood tall and 2228
>>> worked.
>>> ____________
>>> Muriuki Mureithi
>>> Summit Strategies Ltd sent from cellphone
>>>
>>> ________________ Reply Header ________________
>>> Subject: [kictanet] KNEC giving candidates, parents a raw deal
>>> Author: Zachary Ochieng <zzachmbir@yahoo.com>
>>> Date: 29th December 2009 09:59
>>>
>>>
>>> Despite the digitisation of exam results by the Kenya National
>>> Examinations Council (KNEC) and the Ministry of Education, the platform
>>> doesn't seem to be working. My daughter is one of the candidates who
>>> sat
>>> KCPE in November 2009. But more than two hours after the release of the
>>> results by Education minister Sam Ongeri, the KNEC website from where
>>> the
>>> candidates are supposed to check their results remains down. Worse
>>> still,
>>> the 2228 no. to which candidates should text their index numbers to get
>>> results is also not working but continues to consume airtime to the
>>> tune of
>>> Ksh 20 per SMS. If this is not a rip off, then I don't know the
>>> definition,
>>> coming as it does at a time when the ministry is reeling from a theft
>>> scandal.
>>>
>>> One wonders what else the ministry could be hiding. While announcing
>>> the
>>> top candidates, Ongeri never mentioned the names of their schools. But
>>> it is
>>> anyone's guess that majority of them are from private schools. Rather
>>> than
>>> bash the media as he did during the release of the results, Ongeri
>>> should
>>> tell us what is bedevilling FPE.
>>>
>>> Can someone please help? MY daughter has refused to take lunch until
>>> she
>>> gets her results.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --- Be the change you want to see in the world.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> kictanet mailing list
>>> kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke
>>> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
>>>
>>> This message was sent to: mureithi@summitstrategies.co.ke
>>> Unsubscribe or change your options at
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>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke
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>>
>>
>>
>> -- Barrack O. Otieno
>> Administrative Manager
>> Afriregister Ltd (Ke)
>> P.o.Box 21682
>> Nairobi 00100
>> Tel:
>> +254721325277
>> +254733206359
>> +254202498789
>> Riara Road, Bamboo Lane
>> www.afriregister.com
>> www.afriregister.co.ke
>> ICANN accredited registrar.
>> Skype: barrack.otieno
>>
>>
>>
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>> Unsubscribe or change your options at
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>
>
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