Viva la revolution

It's good to be focusing on the work of the school and College at the moment. There is still much to be done on the farm to prepare for planting our crops but the planning has all been done so all we need now are workers and rain. We have plenty of the first and, so far, not very much of the second.

All over the world educationalists and politicians are busy re-inventing the wheel in pursuit of their own Holy Grail - an education system that is fit for purpose. Education reform has certainly been a growth industry in the UK for the last twenty years. Kenya is catching up rapidly. The government made a number of proposals a couple of weeks ago for a major overhaul of the education system. It will take some time to achieve but I think it will happen at some point in the not too distant future.

Having spent a long time working as a teacher in the UK I've seen a number of educational initiatives come and go. At the chalk face they were usually undertaken with a level of enthusiasm comparable to that of deck chair attendants on the Titanic. The major achievements of most initiatives were minor change and rampant grade inflation in public exams. Against this gloomy prospect it might seem foolish to be enthusiastic about improving teaching and learning in our school. I believe we can because we are in the enviable position of being able to design our own school and curriculum from the bottom up.

Despite my apparent cynicism I am, at heart, an optimist and an idealist. I can't believe how lucky I am to have the opportunity to do what I'm doing at the moment. The great challenge is to encourage all of the teachers to catch the same vision for change and to help them to believe that colouring outside the lines is an exciting and rewarding thing to do. It will be a tough challenge but I'm sure that, between us, we are up to it. Education has been in the hands of the politicians and men in suits for too long. It's about time the teachers reclaimed it. Successfully staging a 'chalk face revolution' might sound implausible, (and possibly a little arrogant), but I believe it's long overdue. I'll be reporting from the front line on a regular basis over the coming months.