Can Prof Magoha Fix The Educational Crisis in N.E.P?

There is a popular concurrence that Prof.Magoha is just about the Midas Touch for the Northern Schools.

Up until a few years ago,there was a glimmer of hope that the education sector in this region was picking up-both in terms of access and quality of education-thanks to devolved funding and FPE capitation funds.

Then bang!came the ominous and debilitating anticlimax. The Al shaabab hit the education sector where it hurts.They targeted teachers in remote schools and plundered educational infrastructure.

Overnight,like the biblical mass exodus,there was an unprecedented haemorrhage of non local teachers.In one great cataclysm,the TSC transferred thousands of teachers from NEP,thereby occasioning the biggest blow to the education sector in Northern Kenya since independence. 

Even during the Shifta war of 1966,school's in NFD didn't close down.The Kenyatta Government had instituted ingenious security measures that ensured that learning was not disrupted in this restive region.

And its precisely in this context,that Magoha needs to display some clout and experience. I think he will fail.

Importantly,he has to differentiate sense from nonsense. The Nonsense in this case is the TSC.

The TSC is an archaic institution that should not have been given any constitutional independence. The TSC is defiant and obnoxious in the struggle towards sound staffing in Northern schools.

To the TSC,innovation,flexibility and affirmative action are utopian.

The good ladies at the helm of the TSC are arrogantly impervious to national Concord.They cant imagine that Northern Kenya is indeed part and parcel of the Republic of Kenya.

The good old professor's problems,he will realise, begin and end at the TSC.

The TSC seems to enjoy working in a vacuum. The immediate former Education Secretary Dr Amina realised this just too late.

Prof Magoha should think hard on how to contain the TSC's recalcitrant Chiefs.

Closing the Dadaab Refugee Camp.

There is some renewed interest in Refugee camps in Kenya.Hardly surprising considering that the Kenya Government has been threatening to shut down these camps every year for the last 20 years.

The current reflexes,are,however informed by the most recent attacks by AS on the Dusit Hotel complex.A very impetuous reflex,I must aver.

Kenya's refugee quagmire is slowly becoming analogous with the Palestinian refugee problem in Jordan and Lebanon. Only that there aren't any active hostilities between Kenya and Somalia.The Somalia refugees in Kenya have gradually been assimilated into the mainstream Kenyan society. Many have vast business interests which,in my opinion,is difficult to sever.

A large percentage of those refugees were born in Kenya.Their status will require litigation under domestic and international law.

Ironically,hundreds of refugees who transited to western countries from Dadaab have been granted Citizenship and have contributed significantly to the progress of their new society. 

Why the Kenya Government is averse to any good emanating from this refugees is baffling and confounding. 

It remains to be seen whether the refugee problem can solely be surmounted through repatriation.