This week’s empowerment engagements included a session of mentoring a young form 1 girl proceeding to form 2, who was experiencing some dilemmas. But first, sometimes around October last year, there were highlights in this forum on mentoring a young man from a renown national school, who was a form 4 student.

Before the 10 month school break occassioned by the Coronavirus Pandemic, Kennedy was torn between becoming a pilot or pursuing a career in Actuarial Science. His parents left him to freely make his choice. However, during the long break Kennedy changed his mind and was now considering becoming a Marketer.

The family became concerned and now sought help through our holistic empowerment session titled “Creating the Future Today,” this time as a one on one mentoring session. After the 21/2 hour session, Kennedy was able to clearly understand the empowerment concept from a holistic perspective. Eventually, he made up his mind and surprisingly abandoned the pilot idea, as well as pursuing Actuarial Science.

Recently we bumped into each other with Kennedy, long after the 2020 KCSE exams results had been made public. The excited youngster revealed that he had scored an A- and was eagerly waiting for university admission, to pursue a degree in Dentistry, his eventual preference. Why this 4th change? “I realized that besides being good in Maths, I was also very good in Biology and it could have gone to waste,” revealed a still excited Kennedy.

Our 21/2 hours mentoring session had excited not only Kennedy, but also his parents as well. That is why they once more referred to us, yet another beneficiary of our empowerment sessions. Karen is an extended family member and probably a cousin to Kennedy.

The girl scored 408 marks in the 2019 KCPE and was admitted to a leading girls’ school in Kiambu County. In this school, students make their choices soon after form one, as they proceed to form 2 (remember that testing the effectiveness of our empowerment strategy focussed on the form 2 class of State House Girls HS, in 2015. This was followed by similar engagements in 2016 and 2017, in the same school).

Meanwhile, Karen not only had no idea at all of her likely career, but also her most appropriate subject choices. Her accountant father and Mechanical Engineer mother had left Karen to make her own choices, but was constantly in dilemmas.

Upon referral by Kennedy’s father, our usual 21/2 hour empowerment session was enough. After the mentoring session, an excited Karen was not only clear of her natural orientations, but also her likely eventual Career, as well as the subjects associated with the same. Whereas the career indicated may change over time, the good news is that Karen will now follow the correct empowerment pathway. Like Kennedy, she will no doubt be guided by the expected intrinsic factors, while choosing the eventual and most likely lifetime career.

Perhaps our concern now should be to monitor and eventually find out what becomes of Karen some years after. Most importantly, similar dilemmas are widespread in the school system. The good news is that they are in our case easily sorted out at once, wherever we are engaged. Why share this information?

When we started discussing about empowerment and career alignment or pathway issues with senior educationists, who include high school principals, in 2015, we were seemingly in our own world. The concern in schools was mainly about performance in the National Exams. It did not matter how the knowledge acquired was aligned, especially to eventual careers. That applied to both academic giants and all others.

Sadly, A students constantly became spoilt of choices. They could venture into any career and were mostly influenced by extrinsic factors. Could choices guided by extrinsic factors have continued leading to the well known mediocrity in our country? Could the same have continued contributing to spiralling levels of unemployment, especially of educated Kenyans? Can those experiences be reversed?

Yes indeed, if all educationists can make it a routine of aligning all Kenyan students with the paradigms of the 21st Century. Let us not leave our future into chances Luckily, we now don’t have to wait and assess how the new Competency Based Curriculum-CBC will solve the empowerment challenges, do we?

FYI
A number of educationists have continued wondering why we don’t conduct empowerment seminars in universities, like we do for teachers and other professionals. It is felt that university fraternities also experience disempowerment challenges and equally deserve attention.

Indeed they do, and we have conducted seminars 4 times in 3 leading universities, but not anymore. Keep in mind that the seminars in universities largely happened when we were testing our empowerment strategy, in the entire school system.

At an appropriate time, the findings so far.that are based on our very interesting experiences, will be shared as usual. Let’s for now focus on empowerment of our future leaders, especially during their formative years, shall we?

All the same keep the following inspirations amongst many others in mind:-

1… “The MOE appreciates your passion for the youth, especially through your publications guiding on Career paths,”… wrote the Director of Quality Assurance & Standards, MOE, Jogoo Hse, 30th Oct 2019

2….”I notice that you have adequately dealt with career issues that I have found with students, over the years. You have also given good advice on lost dreams caused by parents, who force their children to pursue the courses they themselves missed out,”.. wrote Professor Jamila Hassanali of Pwani University, Kilifi on 08/10/2018. Having seen our concept online, she secured a hard copy of the same, thus the interesting feedback.

Rgds

Mwangi Wanjumbi (MKIM)
Personal Empowerment Coach
Seasoned Speaker/Trainer on Strategy, Performance, Change Management and Leadership.
Unofficial Architect of the CBC
Author of 1. KICD approved Career Dynamics in the 21st Century, 2. Living Beyond Survival:No More Tiptoeing in Life

3. The 21st Century Student:Are You Creating The Future Today? Also, Retired 5 Year Monthly Strategy Columnist (2013 – 2018) for The SME Today Magazine Phone 254772516210