Dear Barack,

I call you in first name terms because you are a child of our people, so don’t judge me yet. Get to the end. I am writing this because today, I believe that you’re the most powerful man on earth. I believe just a spoken word from you can change the way children are treated by the powers that be in Kenya.

I have just been talking to Judy, a pretty 12-year-old, and she sounds shaky. Not just she, but there are two other children in my neighborhood who can’t even work up the nerve to talk to anyone. Their names are Chris and Omari. They sat their primary school exams in 2010 in private schools, but now at thirteen, they know that their futures lie in the precipice because their parents were able to take them to private schools.

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters

Ok, let me start at the beginning. Education, public or private, was expensive in Kenya before Mwai Kibaki, our president, came to power. When he knew he had the nation and the world hearing, he played his trump card; education was going to be free for anyone who could get their child into a public school. Of course the populace rushed there; it was free and reputed to be good. The result was bulging classrooms.

My friend, Mildred had to mark her son’s homework herself. She could see it. After a full day of being in class after class, the teacher had to mark eighty homework books. In a few weeks, the teacher was too exhausted to do this effectively and stopped marking any homework, only giving it. Mildred realized that a public school was not the answer, so she got another job that could pay her better. She wanted to afford private schools, you see, where her son could get the attention he needed. They were a bit on the steep side. But I must admit that I have no idea where he went – I lost touch with Mildred.

Suddenly, the scenario is replaying itself all over again before my eyes. You see, last Sunday, Judy came to leave the keys at my place for her parents to find when they got home from church; she had to go to school for private tuition. The private school demands that she does so in order to make the grade required for that all important national school. I was shocked, and I asked her who said: she explained that although she will sit her exam next year, her school has to work extra hard with her so that she can get there. She knows that those who set the deciding primary school exams are usually from national schools, and they will train their pupils in the very same questions they intend to set so that the government may save face. What knowledge for a child, eh?

The week leading up to that Sunday, every news broadcast was about parents crying foul; they had done all they could do for their children to make the necessary grade (the results had been released by the ministry) and yet when they did everything required of them, the government made a public announcement that only children from public schools would be admitted to the national schools.

Oh, national schools; I went to one. They’re set up to give back to society the best that’s possible in a child. Ask the Ivy Leagues who they pick from Kenya and then compare it to the list of national schools that we have; it’s actually more than 90% I believe. All kids know to w0rk their way to a national school so that they can go to the best universities in the country and in the world. They are up at 4am and don’t get to bed until 11 am. They study every day and then they study more; they go to school on Sunday. They want to be the cream of the crop.

One hundred and nineteen children are crowded into a single classroom of a rural school in Western Kenya. In 2003, the Kenyan government elimiated school fees at the primary level, revealing--in principle--the country's to the global consensus on Education For All (EFA). Yet large class sizes and astonishing pupil:teacher ratios leave both Kenyans and internationals wondering if, in Kenyan primary schools, quantity has come at the expense of quality.

They have now done their exams and they have hit the targets – spot on. But national schools are now for those who attended public schools, places where classes are 70 or 80 to a room, homework is never seen, food is a scramble and discipline comes by luck. The 0nly mistake that Judy, Omari and Chris made was for their parents to understand that they needed one-on-one attention in learning and so took them to private schools – of course they paid more.

Omari and Chris, who sat the exam this year, are not outside with us any more. They stay indoors because they feel that they have failed; Cambridge, Cornell, you name it, are now just a dream. They have been sent letters to join second grade high schools. True, some of them do eventually spit out brilliant children, but not very many. These kids feel that they have just gambled away their young fortunes.

Perhaps, Obama, being who you are, you can shine a light to guide us as a nation… help to show us the way, so that the next crop of leaders we have are not all about the “grab what you can now coz it won’t last, coz we’re not worth it.”

I do hope to hear from you.

Sincerely with love,

Mutuo Mbilla

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Mutuo Mbilla

Article by Mutuo Mbilla – www.goodarticlewriter.com Mutuo is a professional article writer and IMer who likes to occasionally emerge from her work and catch up with the rest of the world. Her articles here are mainly from what she sees when she sticks her neck out :-).

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