| dc.description.abstract | This study has its express purpose of bringing to light, a phenomenon of educational concern.
That phenomenon is to reconceptualize challenges in Free Primary Education. Our interest is
primarily drawn in the direction of arguing for an authentic and relevant philosophy for FPE.
Since our focus is directed at reconceptualizing challenges in Free Primary Education, an
initial question of primary concern arises. What conception of education do we adopt? In
this study we adopt Freirian's concept of education whereby education is construed as the
inter-subjective process of becoming critically aware of one's reality in a manner that leads
to effective action upon it. This conception allows us to assert that education should be seen
primarily, as a humanizing enterprise in which both student and teacher occur as subjects.
Granted such a view, we are able to reject the teacher-centered perspective of education in
which the student is reduced to the status of an object. We are also able to reject the student centered
perspective of education which denies the inter-subjective nature of education by
affirming the student's encounter with nature as primordial to this encounter with the teacher.
In attempting-to execute the central task at our hands, the second chapter of this study bring
to light the challenges that face FPE and various stakeholders' way forward.
The third chapter attempts to capture the concept of man in his totality, a desire that leads us
to adopt the existential phenomenological approach. With this approach, we are able to
capture man as a contingent being as reflected in his existence, a being-of-transcendence, a
being of concreteness and particularity and a being-of-relations. From this it follows that
when one talks of man as a being, the same is viewed as a being-of-worth, as a being of trust.
This view of man emanates from the dialogical encounter which 'speaks' to him in a critical
way about reality. In understanding reality in dynamic terms as transformable, one comes to
the realization of personal responsibility in the shaping and defining of his destiny.
Chapter four deals with the existential dimension of handling the challenges facing FPE. It is
in empowering the individual by use of education and proper methodology that one can face
the challenges that face him/her in education"to shape hislher destiny. Here, education is
emphasized as a humanizing enterprise. The education in Kenya should aim at producing
authentically self-reliant individuals who have critical consciousness which is the
fundamental hallmark of a person who is self reliant. A self reliant person is self motivated
and makes authentically personal choices. He takes full responsibility for shaping his destiny
in history. or (iv) If the education stakeholders in Kenya are such individuals, they will not wait for the
government to sort the challenges facing FPE in Kenya. Each individual would be self
motivated to solve those challenges authentically thus shaping their own destiny | en |
