Form Four exams are over, what next?
This is a question ringing in most parents and ex candidates’ heads as they ponder what next the world has for them.
Time for clubbing as they await joining universities, colleges, stay at home, marry or get married?
Parents, as the schools have closed and your sons and daughters are back home, what do you have in store for them?
Can you accommodate them in your homes or will you release them to other relatives? If called upon today, are you able to explain or discuss your children’s characters? How well do you know your children?
Yes, results will soon be out, some with flying colours, average or even failed. But, what next?
Ever thought of exploring your child’s skills? Nurturing them?
During this holiday period, it is the time to identify and grow your child’s skills that could help him/her in future. It’s not only a matter of books.
Times are evolving, or better still, have evolved. Make the child put to use his God-given skills. Allow them explore every positive avenue .
After my KCSE examinations, I would make chapatis, samosa, bake cakes and sell within the staff quarters we lived in at the Muhoroni Sub-District Hospital.
At times, I would hawk them in the nearby shops within this small sugar belt town until the sun went down.
In my mother’s house, no one walked in after 6.30 pm, unless you were in school and official leaving hours are along that time, or even travelling.
It was standard, make 20 pieces of chapatis and samosa each for the hospital staff that would be dropped by 10 am while another 20 or 30 pieces for the rest of the buyers.
On a good day, I would take home about Sh800. Sh150 was for a daily chama Mum introduced me to and Sh300, purchase of commodities for the next round. The balance was safely banked in my Post Bank account.
The little I got from my savings saw me join college after two years of waiting. I bought a suitcase, paid registration fee and part of the first semester fee. To date, I’m very proud of it.
Let me get to the main business at hand. Parents, what do you want your kids to do during this holiday?
It is not all about reading to pass exams. This culture built has cost us as a nation. Very few have fully exploited their talents or skills and if still done, the society looks down upon them as failures.
If well embraced, we could be having a country with hundreds of self-employed Kenyans. Let higher learning institutions be a home of nurturing the already existing skills, not reading to pass exams.
Additionally, do not force your kids to take up courses that suit you and not them.
Some good in academics, others are not. Some exceptional in sports, others are great in music.
Give them a chance this holiday to explore that which they have, work on it when joining higher learning institution and get the best out of them. Only this way, will we be doing justice to the children and country at large.
Instead of locking this child indoors to play computer games, or giving them your car to go party out with friends, take time to enroll them in the local polytechnics for mechanical works, go for music lessons, tailoring classes, cooking classes as they await results and plans for 2020.
And to the ex-candidates, this is not the time to start moving one club to another, throw your books under the bed for completing O-levels. It is, instead, the beginning of life and its realities.
If you did not develop a saving culture while in school, it’s never too late; the little you came back home with, turn it into something positive and learn through it.
Do not wait to set foot in campus and start thinking of exploring your skills. We only grow and improve on them while in these institutions.
You do not need to get an A grade to make it in life. That C can transform you into something big, if only, you allow yourself explore into other areas.
Also, missing out in campus or middle colleges is not the end of life, explore the available options of youth polytechnics. You could be the best mechanic in town and God knows within no time, you could put up your own garage.
The time is now where patience, resilience and innovation should be embraced. Exams is just an avenue to testing your already existing skills on the knowledge gained in the period you were in school.
Winnie Miseda is a journalist and currently the HR/Head Administrator at Track and Trace Ltd -ECTS. Do you have feedback on this article?Please email: [email protected]
