As we settle in the new year, some concerns recently expressed by one reader have been quite provocative. Why do you constantly make references to empowerment in the 21st century? Further, what is this that leads teachers to re-enter universities for new knowledge after your seminars? He lamented.
It is not clear why the reader was so concerned, but this shouldn’t be taken for granted. The concerns keep reminding me of interactions in the recent years, with Professor Maina, who at the turn of the century, taught me Total Quality Management, a specialization in Management Science. After constantly reading my articles in the media, the Professor surprisingly called me in June 2013, after 10 years plus, since we last met in the lecture room.
This time, the professor wanted me to take his TQM class that was graduating in August 2013, through a session that would help them understand how the TQM lessons apply in real life. My presentation titled “Quality Starts With You,” never disappointed the soon to be graduates, as well as the professor. No wonder, the experience influenced the writing of Career Dynamics in the 21st Century, later on, the talk becoming chapter 6 of the concept.
Five years later, there was payback time for the Professor’s invite of 2013. During the launch of the advancement publication titled “Living Beyond Survival; No More Tiptoeing in Life,” we couldn’t help, but invite the Professor as the Chief guest for the occasion, on 6th December 2018. The professor readily accepted his students’ invite, but subject to being guided on what he was expected to discuss.
Almost immediately, “empowerment in the 21st Century,” became the preference which he easily concented. During the launch, the professor ably articulated the issue of empowerment from a very broad perspective, the focus of our publications notwithstanding.
According to the Professor, empowerment ideas first came up in the first ever international conference of women, which happened in Mexico in 1975. The theme was equality of women and their contribution to world peace. The next World Conference on Women, happened in 1980 and took place in Copenhagen, Denmark as the mid-decade assessment of progress in implementing the goals established at the 1975 inaugural conference.
The 1985 Women international conference took place in Nairobi, which was flooded by more than 5000 women from all over the world. The turning-point for violence against women emerged from being a hidden topic into one, which needed to be addressed. Empowerment of women in Kenya started taking great shape, though from a physical perspective. It was a matter of putting every effort to wrestle the power from men, who were perceived to be the custodians.
The Fourth World Conference on Women which revolved around Action for Equality, Development and Peace happened in Beijing in 1995. At this conference, governments from around the world agreed on a comprehensive plan to achieve global legal equality, known as the Beijing Platform for Action.
Ideally, women power has evolved substancially since occurrence of these conferences. The wrestling of power from men has led to not only more women acquiring education, but also organizational as well as political leadership, ever since. Based on Feruary 2020 statistics from Kenya National Beureal of Statistics – KNBS, women comprise 50.2 % of those in the employment sector. The same was 47.8% in 2010, thus clear evidence of the continued beating of men over the years.
Evidently, there is great concern of the situation of the boychild and ultimately the man, who is today seemingly quite threatened. Could this be resulting from challenged perceptions of men, especially with regard to uptake of new ideas in the 21st Century? Your guess is as good as mine. Nonetheless, there is urgent need for arresting this trend of disempowerment of men. However, we this time need to revisit the issue of empowerment from a technical perspective.
According to Professor Maina, empowerment is the capacity to be endowed with authority to independently and responsibly develop solutions for solving personal, organizational or national challenges. Ideally, effectiveness of this power and authority needs to be sustainable. Why so?
In a highly competitive world, the universe has unlimited opportunities. Equally, the power to exploit those opportunities is unlimited as long as we continue building on it’s capacity in this 21st Century. In that regard, aligning the boychild with the paradigms of the 21st Century should be considered as an inevitable foundation standard. Teachers and others wishing to appropriately re-align themselves with the paradigms of the 21st century are also great beneficiaries.
In our case however, it is quite worrying that only 15% of boys’ schools embraced our empowerment strategy compared to 38% for the girls schools in the year 2021, whereas that of teachers was 30%. Mind you, our empowerment strategy aligns with that of the Competency Based Curriculum, hence already officially recognized, in the entire education system.
The same strategy has been tested in primary schools upto universities, but found to be most ideal in secondary schools. As such, there should be no guesswork of applicable empowerment strategy of our future leaders, for the best interest of all, isn’t it?
FYI
We are still continually inspired by ……”We wish to commend your endeavors of improving education standards in the country,”…wrote the KNEC CEO and former KICD Research Director, on 15th Jan 2019, upon request for performance statistics of the schools we had empowered in 2018.
As such, our empowerment seminars below variously continue contributing to the desired performance improvement in different schools, so far spread in 12 counties. They include;-
- Creating the Future Today Seminar for secondary school students – 2.5 hrs
- Re- Creating the Future Today Seminar for teachers/other professionals – 3hrs
- Secret Strategies of High Achievers for secondary school students – 2hrs
Keep in mind that no heads should be cracked in schools, while in such of performance improvement solutions, when they are already in existence. WELCOME!!
Rgds
Mwangi Wanjumbi (MKIM)
Personal Empowerment Coach
Seasoned Speaker/ConsultantTrainer on Strategy, Performance, Change Management and Leadership.
Competency Based Curriculum-CBC Architect
Author of 1. KICD approved Career Dynamics in the 21st Century, 2. Living Beyond Survival:No More Tiptoeing in Life
- 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 254722516210
Recent Comments