Poor decision-making threatens children’s future
By Erick Mukiira, July 19, 2025I navigate past colourful motorbikes and tuktuks blaring their horns as I head to Mishomoroni, north of Mombasa. The potholes along this road are unbearable.
I’ve learned to dodge some of them, but each journey reveals new craters that weren’t there before.
For short men like me, the drive means hunching close to the steering wheel, eyes peeled for every hidden pothole.
This is infuriating. Someone surely knows this road has turned chaotic, yet no action.
Speaking of potholes reminds me of our education system – filled with beautiful-sounding acronyms like CBC (Competency-Based Curriculum) but lacking clear direction.
Ideas are dreamed up somewhere, then dumped onto teachers and students for immediate implementation.
In 2023 alone, we reduced subjects across educational stages, merged pre-primary through junior secondary under single institutions.
In April 2024, the ministry delayed the second term due to heavy rains, then released students early amid anti-government protests. These frantic decisions left parents and educators utterly confused.
By 2025, the ministry declared Mathematics optional, a baffling decision since every career path in Kenya passes through languages and Mathematics.
These skills are crucial for calculating insurance claims, managing currency exchange, budgeting, making investments, and planning retirement.
At Grade Eight, students have only covered foundational concepts, the basic elements that underpin all future learning.
Then came the chapati system, Governor Johnson Sakaja’s culinary innovation turned policy initiative in Nairobi schools.
Instead of adding resources to school libraries, we rolled out chapatis. Instead of hiring teachers, we kneaded dough.
Perhaps the idea was that well-fed pupils don’t question broken systems. As elders say, “A full stomach does not teach a full mind.”
After months of resistance from educators and experts, the ministry finally re-declared Mathematics compulsory.
Because numbers do count after all. It’s time for Kenya to invest in education with the seriousness it deserves. Just as potholes threaten our roads, poor decision-making threatens our children’s future and our nation's prosperity.
Erick Mukiira is an IB Drama and Theatre Teacher Aga Khan Academy Mombasa