Schools in Kenya have taken the second trimesters holidays or August holidays. It has been a busy time since the first week. We have a few new students who joined the school this trimester and this becomes those who transfer from other schools. All extra school activities went on well during the term and 27 of our students were able to travel outside the county for competitions with other schools. The teachers have reported that there is good progress in academic performance at the end of the trimester as children were going home for break. Some of our teachers are now able to work with computers in school and the local examination results are very clear. Looking at the report of our final class this year it seems as if we have able students.
There have been sad occasions in the last three months as two of your students lost their dads in different times and different places during the term. We had the school represented during the funerals. Our matron also lost her brother in a car accident and two weeks ago one of our former students died after a short illness. His home was not far from the school and he was in his third year in high school.
COST OF LIVING IN KENYA: Cost of living is to go up as shilling (Kenya currency) slides to down against the US dollar and this means petroleum prices are likely to go up. This will further pile pressure on the cost of goods and services, including transport. If the cost of transporting beans maize, milk and other consumables goes up, this could lead to an increase in food prices.
Analysts attributed the weakening of the shilling to the strengthening of the dollar; as a result, the cost of living is likely to go up, because the country will spend more to import petroleum products. Since fuel prices are going up and there are no signs of a slowdown, the cost of living is expected to rise. This will make life harder for Schools trying to keep things going with the same amount of school fees that I set seven years ago.
VISIT TO KENYA: A few people have asked about my visiting Kenya and especially the school this year. As you all know I was not able to make my planned visit last year because I was called back to the US after my sabbatical in Rome. After some months I did not know whether the ban to go to Africa because of Ebola was lifted by our Bishop but I came to know that some priest had visited Kenya early in the year.
After reviewing how things have been going, I had to go through Easter season while a demanding activity had come our way in the Parish. St. Mary’s of the Lake Church that is one of St. Maximillian Parish that I serve is going to celebrate Golden Jubilee since the present Church was built relocating the Parish from Main street of the village of Ontario NY. I formed a committee to plan for a whole year of activities for this Jubilee that will be inaugurated by our Bishop in September this year.
This committee got other subcommittees and has been active since with meetings and many undertakings that should see us through a spiritual journey of one year before the closing of the Jubilee year in September 2016. My presence has been required in most of the planning and often I have to say what I had in mind when I thought of a one-year spiritual journey for our Jubilee. The planning has been a great success, thank God for people with gifts of leadership, those talents they did not want to bury in the ground or lamp that they did not want to cover under a vessel. I did not want to go before the inauguration of the Jubilee year.
EDUCATION AND POVERTY: Kenya has been ranked sixth among top 10 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with large populations living in extreme poverty. And the country will not be able to combat poverty by 2030 unless radical measures are taken to rescue the 18 million people under the poverty line, says a study by the Institute of Security Studies.
The study, Reasonable Goals for Reducing Poverty in Africa, says, failure to reduce poverty is threatening Kenya’s economic success. The study further reveals that although Kenya and other Sub-Saharan countries have experienced reasonable economic growth, they have failed to translate this growth into poverty reduction. The reporters said: although Kenya and many other African countries hoped to end extreme poverty by 2030, many would miss the target.
It is reported that because Kenya was relatively unequal, with growth restricted to urban areas, the country still had a long way to go to end poverty. He said a high population increase, mismanagement of resources and setting of short term goals by politicians to win elections were also contributing to the slow elimination of poverty.
“Poverty will come down at a relatively quick rate but the country will not reach the goal of alleviating poverty by 2030,” he said. “Kenya needs to invest more in basic education, infrastructure and in finding a way to get to the poor.”
FREE EDUCATION AND LAPTOPS IN KENYA
Parents with children in public primary and secondary schools will not pay a single cent in the next three years, according to the President of Kenya. He said the government is keen to ensure learning at both levels is “truly free” which is why the government has raised the amount of money allocated to each learner this year. “The aim is to make primary and secondary education wholly free by 2018. This will be welcome news for parents who are still paying fees to supplement tuition fees the government pays.
The President of Kenya said he is determined to provide a laptop to each standard one (first grader) pupil. He said the ongoing school electrification program, which will see every primary school connected to electricity, will also enable our pupils to receive and make use of the laptops promised as part of our transformation program. He has also asked the Ministry of Education to ensure it provides a laptop to each of the 21,000 (public) schools while ensuring 6,000 teachers are trained.
I am not sure what this will mean to a school like Father Ntaiyia Jubilee School. If it will be successful it may mean that all learning institutions may have to provide some computer learning.
The schools are on August break and will be reporting back in the first week of September.
Fr. Symon Peter Ntaiyia