Forget about Musa Lendo and his ruler complex.  Some of the letters I receive are so painful and I don’t know what to do about them.  Take this one for example:

Dear Makengeza, the man with the squint,

I am writing to you in English in the vain hope that someone among the educated elite, some educationalists who are still true to their profession, some members of the Ministries responsible for our children will take heed.  I am at my wit’s end as a parent.

I strongly believe that I have a role as a parent with my children but, starting in Standard Four, I lose my child every second year.  Yes.  When she was just nine, nine years old, she had to go to school at six o’clock in the morning and left school at 8:00 at night.  These are hours that not even adults should have to endure.  It means she had to get up at 5:00 or even earlier and by the time she returned home and had something to eat and did her homework it was already ten o’clock at least.   

So, at the very most, if she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow and slept until forced to wake up and sleepwalk to wash and have some porridge, she would sleep seven hours.  But as anyone who has overworked knows, you don’t sleep immediately when you are mentally tired. 

Yet medical experts say a child of that age needs at least 8-10 hours sleep a night.  And of course, I am lucky as my daughter goes to a school close to home. What about those who have to wake up even earlier to catch a bus to go to school and come home even later?

Such a schedule could be seen as a form of blackmail on parents because if the child has to miss sleep, so does her parent.  They want all the students to be boarders.  But God forbid. The boarders are woken up at 4:00 and in some secondary schools, I hear even 3:00 while they finish studies at 10.00 pm. 

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I have asked my daughter and others whether some of the kids don’t sleep in the clsssroom and they always laugh and say, “Of course, we do.” So, tell me, where is the logic of depriving children of sleep in the belief that more minutes in the classroom = better performance.  Rubbish! We complain about child labour but this is actually worse.

What we need to realise is that more is less. More hours, less concentration, less absorption of material, less activity.  By contrast, less is more. Less instruction, more learning, more enjoyment, more participation. I am sure every teacher was taught in school about optimal concentration, so why does no one follow it?  Please, you great educationists, tell me, why?

And please, you great educationists, tell me how am I supposed to play a role as a parent as well?  Or are parents no longer necessary? How can I play that role when my child leaves the house a 5:30 am and returns at 8:30 pm.  Oh, and not forgetting the weekends when they have to go to school as well.  Until nighttime.  So Standard Four, Standards 6 and 7, Form 2, Form 4, Form 6, there is no way I can play my parental role, observing, chatting, guiding, supporting.  She is no longer my child.  

And what about her health?  We managed to see her through Standard Four and now she has not even started Standard Seven and the pain has started again. I am seeing different ailments every week, ears, eyes, stomach upsets.  Of course. Because of lack of sleep, at a key moment in her growth as she goes through puberty, her immune system is down and she is prey to all sorts of infections. Why do we want to kill off our children?

And what for? Any child who has received reasonable instruction with sufficient teachers, will sail through Standard Four and probably Standard Seven with their eyes closed. They do not need this imposition on their brains and lives. Similarly the Form Two exam.  

No.  All these extra hours are not for the benefit of the children.  No way. They are for the benefit of the school. It is the school that wants all the straight As and Division Ones so as to attract more people to their school.  

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Of course, they are also egged on by some parents who believe that more is more and education as punishment is the best way to prepare them for life. I would like to refuse these hours but the pressure on my daughter is so huge that she will just be stressed out if she doesn’t go.  

Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. The parents claim that that is how it has always been but I think they suffer from defective memory. When I was in primary school, our headteacher specifically stated that we should not go to tuition.  If the school has done its job properly, children should already be tired and should spend the rest of the day being children, not mini-professors.  

And we all passed with flying colours.  Of course, even then many parents regarded their children as mini-computers who needed to be programmed until their hard disk jammed but we passed easily. And even earlier, when the competition for places was huge, there were actually free periods in secondary school for students to read and discuss, not cramming cramming cramming.

And don’t let me start on pre-primary.  

Now, I am not so foolish as to think that in this competitive society, schools are going to give up sacrificing their pupils and students on the altar of exam results.  The problems are two fold.

The tyranny of exams, right from Standard Four.  Now I hear some so called experts saying, of course, we have to have exams, otherwise why would they study? That, my friends, is a serious indictment of the education system.  If you have to force people to study by giving them exams all the time, it means that children do not see that their education is relevant at all. 

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Where is the love of learning?  And in fact, the way the exams are set up, they are not even testing understanding but only cramming, and there is always one right answer even where there could be a discussion.  One of my other children made a comment about history.  What did the teacher tell her?

“You are absolutely right but don’t put that in the exam.”

Are we teaching our children to tell lies in order to pass?

Once again, in the past things were different. There was continuous assessment, there were projects which encouraged people to go outside the syllabus, and work together.  And marking schemes allowed for different answers provided they were well argued.   How did we get to this point.

The tyranny of language.  I know you have talked about this many times Makengeza but when I go to the villages, I want to weep.

Why can’t we learn from other countries like Finland which is recognised to have one of the best education systems in the world and proves it time and again. And they are way ahead of beberu lands like the USA. 

We follow the mabeberu in believing that in that more is more but in Finland, it is the opposite.  First of all, what is the hurry?  They only start school at the age of 7.  That way, before school, a kid can be a kid, play, enjoy, interact, learn from being with his or her peers.  Then when they start school there are only 9 years of compulsory education. Dah!

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And the school day? No waking up before the sun rises and going to bed long after the sun has gone to bed.  School starts from 9 o’clock and they finish by 2 o’clock or 2.45 in the afternoon. Then, they usually only have a couple of classes a day and have several breaks for eating, playing and just relaxing as well as getting some fresh air.

According to research, Finnish students also have the least amount of homework in the whole world, only half an hour so that they can relax at home and follow their other interests and learning and growing as a human being.

Finally, oh sacrilege, there are no national exams, except for a voluntary one at the end of high school. They learn because they enjoy learning and the emphasis is on cooperation, not competition, working together towards a common goal but they still do better than almost everyone else. 

So while they emphasise cooperation, they compete globally better than anyone else.

Ahem!