Illiteracy is So Costly We Can't Afford It

OPINION
September 10, 2001

Posted to the web September 10, 2001

Mutahi Kagwe.

A number of readers have raised, both directly and in the Press, various issues concerning the views I contributed to this newspaper on August 10 on the absolute need to have a literate society.
Most of the issues raised concern affordability and the difficulties of implementing a system based on paying (or not paying) what you can afford. This was in the context of my argument that no child deserves to be sent away from school on account of lack of fees.

These are pertinent issues and, indeed, I do not have all the answers. But I do know this: When looking for food comes difficult, we do not suggest that we simply forget about it. The problems we will encounter should not affect the principle. I still believe that the issue of expense should not come between children and education.

I have had the opportunity to witness this problem first-hand, as I am sure many others have. In Mukurwe-ini division, where I come from, I had a sad encounter some weeks ago with an indigent grandmother who has recently been left to care for nine orphaned grandchildren. The parents died from Aids. Somehow, this poor grandmother and others like her are expected to educate these grandchildren. If she won't raise the fees, which she clearly can't, they will never go to school.

The only key out of poverty

This is a pity. I believe education is a right every child should benefit from, irrespective of circumstances. In fact, it should, as one of the letters in this paper said, be a constitutional right because in many instances, education is the only way that poor people can ever get out of poverty.
From the moment a child is born, he or she becomes a shareholder in this country who is entitled to enjoy all that comes with that entitlement, education being key.

When we educate a child, we are actually doing our country a favour. Those who maintain education is too expensive to be given free should think of the even higher cost of the alternative: ignorance, crime, and a disjointed socio-economic and political system. In a word, instability.
I quite agree that education has become so expensive it has been necessary to introduce new cost-sharing policies. That is fine, as long as those who can afford to pay do so. But those who cannot should not under any circumstances be ignored.

This issue is too important to be left like that. Even when the World Bank, for their own reasons, devise such cost-sharing policies, we have an obligation to come up with humane safety nets for the most impoverished among us. We owe it not just to them, but to the well-being of our society. And the responsibility should not be left solely to the Ministry of Education. The community, too, shares this responsibility.

Harambees have been one important pillar. But this cannot sustain the development of our education system forever. Poverty has spread everywhere and parents are already stretched to the limit. You cannot ask them to cost-share when they have nothing to share. You simply cannot share poverty.
Society keeps telling children that education is the key to success. But when you take this key away because a child is too poor to afford it, what will stop that child from devising other means of survival -like crime and other anti-social behaviour.

We need to think of newer strategies of helping out the very poor. How about creating a system of revolving education bursary funds? The present system of bursary funds supervised by the Government and other quasi-official bodies is usually a one-off affair: the money raised is distributed at a go with nothing left to regenerate future funds for the children who will come after. The same goes for the traditional harambee efforts that go on in the districts, locations, and villages. There are so many people in dire need that little else is left to build a fresh pool of cash.

We must think of new ways of community support for destitute children. Let's think of other solutions. Let us, for instance, create a fund for Aids orphans and give incentives to companies, NGOs and others to generously contribute. Let us encourage well-to-do individuals to create foundations which sponsor children in dire need. Let us do the same with corporations. Better still, let us devise a way corporate contributory schemes to such a fund are tax-exempt. Above all, let us have a Government that cares and shows seriousness to fight poverty and want.

Mr Kagwe is the Managing Director of Tell-Em Public Relations Consultants