By Emmanuel Gwakoi
Strange as it may sound, learners in Kisii County negotiate with their instructors to reach a consensus on when they will be available in the day to attend lessons.
An instructor’s day is clear cut: a morning search for learners to agree on time in the afternoon they will meet.
“Our instructors look for and mobilize learners in the morning, and agree on time they go to school in the afternoon,” says David Mong’are, Kisii County Adult and Continuing Education Officer (CACEO).
The goodwill of the learner is paramount here, and the instructor is expected to listen and be flexible according to their wishes.
Majority of the learners, notes the officer, are parents and have to work on farms or do businesses to fend for their families.
Being the breadwinners, instructors have to be careful not to offend and lose them altogether.
The schools admit those who either never went to school or dropped out at various stages, with the aim being to impart in them literacy and numeracy skills.
The department has registered 47 private candidates; 28 male and 19 female for this year’s KCPE, compared to their 9 male and 6 female counterparts for KCSE.
Yet it is estimated that there are hundreds of illiterate adults out there around the county.
That aside, Monga’re praised their structure as goal-oriented as they tailor it to learners’ interests. For example, learners running businesses are taught basic applied maths and those with religious inclinations are taken through literacy skills to be able to read the Bible.
He lamented that some sub-counties have no learning centres due to lack of instructors.
He says the county requires a minimum 500 instructors for the 11 sub-counties for effective teaching, saying the current 15 on full time, 78 on part time and few volunteers were simply not enough.
“Each location has a school but we lack instructors to teach the increasing number of learners who enroll for adult classes every year,” Mong’are told the Education News in his office.
Part time instructors are paid tokens and teach from 2 to 5 o’clock for three days a week.
He asked the government to employ more instructors to replace those who retire or die.
“We are supposed to have one instructor per location but some do not have. We need more staff to foster the programme,” said Mong’are, adding there was the additional danger of learners relapsing to illiteracy if they are not motivated.
Mong’are appealed to residents who want to enroll for the classes to do so at schools with instructors, adding that registration is free and those who pass the national examinations can advance to higher levels.
He urged the government to allocate more funds to the department to enable education officers buy learning and promotional materials that will help sensitize more people.
He identified negative attitude towards adult learning as one reason people shunned it, explaining why there were more females than males.
“Men would rather not sit with their spouses in class as it relegates their ego,” Monga’re observed.
