JAMILA’S MEMO: The Ministry of Education’s midnight escapades

Some deeds smack of outright contempt, in Kiswahili, madharau. You see even in basic etiquette, phones go silent at some point because it is time to rest, time to close the day and rejuvenate for the next. And Yes, many normal people including millions of parents across the country do turn their phones off or put them on silent mode or, Yes, those in urban setting prefer to do not disturb or put them on airplane mode.

So it is really rude, inconsiderate, mindless and all together contemptuous for a person, especially if that person is the government, to drop such a consequential message to a silent phone in the dead of the night.

No pre-alerts, no warning, no notice, just a message on your phone that the reopening of schools has been postponed by a week, just a few hours before schools were set to start the second term of the year. In reality this is a message most parents would only see the next day probably on their way out of the house. Never mind that millions others would have missed it entirely.

So sudden, short and late was the notice that for Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja, lunch for schools for the next day was actually ready. I am talking about lunch, I don’t even want to imagine the plans for breakfast! Fellow Kenyans, that is how late that message from the ministry was. To CS Ezekiel Machogu, the Ministry of Education and whoever else was behind this midnight wisdom, you made a powerful statement on contempt; madharau. The notice reeks of arrogance and a lack of accountability on the part of the government. This is one of those statements that were probably made because ‘we are the government, watado?' madharau.

In communications, this passes for another disaster for government. It smells of dysfunction, incoherence and sorry to say that broken telephone line. Government was not speaking coherently; it was muttering consequential words incoherently well past the stroke of midnight; madharau. What was supposed to be clear, precise, concise and timely was not and never has been, at least with this administration. Other than the unfair treatment it subjected parents and Kenyans in general, the midnight ministerial statement escapades betrayed a clear sense of disharmony within the ranks of decision making in government.

In proverbial terms, the buck was running all over the place before ending up as a statement at midnight. Excuse those Kenyans who felt that in the night, no one owned the buck and a midnight stop might have just been by the stroke of luck. I am also left wondering what exactly is the process of assessing obvious dangers like countrywide flooding and making a decision on whether schools should be opened or not. It is not sounding to me like an inspired science, it sounds like having a logic driven process. I mean, the Met. Department has been projecting not just the rain patterns but the amounts down to the millimeter. So, who was it in the Ministry of Education who was supposed to proceed on the basis of that information? And make a decision on the reopening of schools?

Of course one may appreciate that in what we often hear being termed as a whole government approach, some conversations will take place upwards, downwards, sideways all within the whole government and a decision made on whether it is safe to reopen schools in the prevailing weather conditions or not. Now I am left wondering whether these conversations only took place at that stroke of midnight.

Here is my pain for parents and children of this country; you are taken for granted. You were treated with poor regard and shown that government can so blatantly lack the spirit of accountability. Some sympathies to those who prepared next day’s meals; but I digress. The rains are still here with us and room for better decisions lie ahead for the Ministry of Education and government as a whole. If not for anything else communication of whatever decisions should look at the bare minimum, tidy and well thought out, and not some midnight sudden jerk from deep slumber.