EDITORIAL: Urgent need to restore sanity in education

EDITORIAL

University lecturers have been on strike for the past three weeks without any sign of a truce anytime soon.

Medical school students at Moi University have been up in arms because the present strike means they will not graduate this year, even though they were to graduate two years ago.

Secondary school head teachers have week in week out made the case of delayed capitation money, the net effect of which means they are running schools on empty.

Worse, the cash crunch coincides with a busy examination calendar when supply disruptions will have a negative effect on exam preparedness.

The Ministry of Education must pull out all the stops and ensure schools and colleges run programmes on schedule and anticipate all potential trouble areas because millions of disgruntled youth are a powder keg that can explode to devastating effect.

The lecturers' union must understand the gravity of its actions and agree to sit down and resolve the compensation disputes.

The future of Kenya’s brightest lies in limbo and the prospect of Kenya’s top universities will definitely not attract international students because no student wants a college system in which graduation plans are unpredictable because of long, endless strikes that can start without notice.

Quote of the day: “Success needs no explanation. Failure does not have one that matters..” —American clergyman, civil rights activist and Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson was born on October 8, 1941.