Kenya is once again at the crucible of its five-year cycle of political shenanigans and skullduggery.
It is the shameless period when adults come out in their true colours, spew dirt from their mouths, and sit in the front pews on Sunday in holy houses of prayer to project an air of purity.
Amid all these flip-flop characters of doom, our children are watching closely. They are taking in each and every thing that adults do, and boy, this is not good at all. Let me come to this later as we go.
Dear Kenyan children, I wish success to all 3.6 million candidates taking their national assessments during this peak season. You are the true heroes of this country, the strong foundation on which we have built our hopes for a better, more prosperous nation.
Speaking of this, I also wish to warn you to be aware of the adults around you; you are more likely to go the wrong way if you copy what they do or listen to their often misguided advice, especially if it involves cheating in examinations. Say a big no, stand tall, and do your thing. Focus on writing your assessments, and you shall fly with cloud-breaking colours.
To the millions of children at home for the longest holiday of the year, this is an opportunity to learn new skills, spend time with your families, and experience life in its real, authentic form, free from wake-up bells and table routines. This amount of freedom comes at a cost, a cost that can be either positive or negative, depending on how you pull your horses.
Dear young Kenyans and parents at large, please train your children in some basic human skills now. Deconstruct these young Kenyans' minds of stereotypes about real-life skills such as cooking, cleaning up, and sewing, to name but three. Spare a few shillings and enrol them in short courses such as driving, coding, baking, a second language, etc. These skills will come in very handy in their survival toolbox at a later stage in life.
There is nothing as beautiful as working through the sweat of your hands and relishing the fruits of your labour, however small they may be. Honest work is the goal, and working your way through day-to-day problems, providing solutions for yourself and the community around you, is the real flex in the 21st century. Great nations are built over time by a focused generation that dwells in honest work built on utmost integrity and due diligence. Dear young ones, do not be smitten by the glitterati around you; we have adults who are rolling in seemingly big ornaments, but they have nothing productive to back up their presence.
There is not a single product on the shelf that they have produced, not even a pencil sharpener. Yet the grown-ups have colluded to call these groups moguls and businesspeople.
Please ignore all this miseducation and focus on the ray of light in your vision and dreams; we need to raise a nation of product builders, fabricators of industrial machines, value-adders to our agricultural produce, innovators of new breeds of livestock, and cultivators of new disease control methods. We must be focused, with purpose and direction.
In you, we have hope for a better nation built on a foundation of productivity. It is time for all 55 million Kenyans to start asking hard questions and to rethink the ideals that will take this country to the next level.
The deafening noise that is rising by the day is not helping anyone. The year-on-year reports of waste and stagnation are also not very encouraging; the big question is: How do we all get out of this perennial rut of mass directionlessness?
We all have a duty to make things better for our generation and those to come.
We need to soul-search and challenge ourselves about the need to step out of our comfort zones, roll up our sleeves, and get to the real business of building Kenya. Success to all 3.6 million candidates in the 2026 assessment.
God bless you. God bless Kenya.
The writer is a Career Educationist, Researcher, Digital Content and Curriculum Developer and Comments on topical issues.
