Compliments, Comments and Complains... Youth Morale is vital

From a young Kenyan point of view, today I want to focus more on positive deeds happening in the country that have a positive effect on the youth and youthful Kenyans. 

To begin with, I’m celebrating the 41000 students who sat for their KCSE last year and will be joining public university this year.  The number is 8,000 more than the 34,000 students who were admitted last year. Indeed it's a commendable record breaking on university enrollment by the Joint Admission Board, JAB. In addition, JAB has also cut the two year waiting period for these candidates and this year candidates will be joining in October.

I'm confident student's demand to have HELB loans increased will be considered

Much credit also goes to the Ministry for Higher Education for facilitating this record enrollment by upgrading nine technical colleges to university campuses which will admit their batch of students this year. This is a clear indication that the government is determined to educate the future of this country. I’m also confident that the recent demands by university students to have their HELB loans increased due to the rising cost of living will also be considered.

But this journey to a learned nation has not been easy since it was ignited in 2003 by the Narc government when it launched the Free Primary Education program. Challenges such as scandals and allegations of stolen FPE money have not deterred us from going for the goal. In 2008, the government launched the free tuition secondary education, a step further towards our goal. Now we’ve seen how those who excelled in the secondary education have been rewarded.

And with so much praise on the Government for credible uplifting of the education sector, I cannot rest my case before warning the government that the journey doesn’t end once these young Kenyans have joined the universities. It is up to the very government to create an economy that will nurture and facilitate development of graduates; an economy that will breastfeed innovativeness of graduates with relevant opportunities.

Learned youth with no opportunity is a pending disaster

Joining universities and colleges is not as vital as knowing how beneficial that enrollment is to the life of the young scholar. I believe there are thousands of university and college students who are waiting to graduate yet they have no idea what they will do with their courses. I therefore, strongly believe policies should be put in place to ensure that these graduates later become useful and accessible sources of human resource for development of this country. These policies should exhaustively address the youth unemployment crisis we are currently facing in the country.

 I would also take this opportunity to commend our athletics team for such a commendable performance in the biggest ever London Marathon. Special congrats to Wilson Kipsang and Mary Keitany for completing a classy Kenyan double in the elite races with Keitany becoming the quickest African of all time as she retained her women's title with a re-run of her sparkling solo win from 12 months' ago. World silver medalist Priscah Jeptoo completed a Kenyan sweep of the medals - the first ever in the women's race.

At the same time I would like to apologize on behalf of the Kenyan media for not giving such a victorious moment for Kenya much coverage and in turn opting to focus more on divisive politics. I hope you bear with us as that’s the nature of our media; we are more attracted to bullshit than to glorious news.

As I retire on this article, it would be unusual for me to sign off without criticizing the current system. I thought once we endorsed the new constitution, we had done away with inhuman handling of the members of public by the police. But it seems I was wrong. On April 19 my eyes could not believe the images of police firing live bullets and teargas canisters to the youth who had attended the Limuru 2B meeting. I witnessed with dismay several young Kenyans who were arrested in the meeting being roughly beaten by police officers who passionately carried out the act in front of cameras.

Are we going back to where we were a decade ago? I thought the Utumishi kwa Wote theme had been restored in our police force. It irritates me to see a ruling class that Kenya has entrusted in implementation of the new law reviving the old, ugly and undemocratic tactics of police brutally dispersing meetings. In addition, the police force has also been accused of brutally beating and causing severe injuries on yet another young Kenyan in Turkana County. I personally watched the video and didn’t give a damn about the wrong the kid had committed because I believe no wrongdoer deserves such an inhuman punishment.     

So dear Mr. System, there is no way you clean the right hand and stain the left one and expect I to approve your cleanliness, I will tell it to your face, the left hand is stained.