HOW THE STANDARD GROUP HELPS OBORAH CON KENYANS

The story below was published in the East African Standard . The article has nothing newsworthy and is definitely a ploy by Oborah to gain some much needed legitimacy and not surprisingly fails mention anything of his Masters, PhD studies. A pen for hire? Anyone surprised? How could a professor fail to mention this?

The Standard group has aired many of DALC's documentaries and now publishes useless stories from an Institution that is busy defrauding Kenyans. Read the article below and see how the article is filled with DALC rhetoric (gift and talent testing,cramming, prescription, biomedically etc) and might as well have been written by Oborah.

Oborah: Brains behind Dalc education

Published on 30/10/2008

By David Ohito

Should his vision become part of the education system, it would be a huge departure from the past.

Dr Oborah has proposed radical changes in the education system.
It would revolutionalise the traditional system, which seems to put much emphasis on academic performance.

Dr Humphrey Oborah has dedicated extensive research in coming up with a suitable education system.

And for the past five years he has been implementing his findings in a way that radically breaks from the conservative system.

As the head of missions at the Digital Advisory and Learning Centre (Dalc), Oborah has embraced modern education practices.

Here, all students are assessed for ‘Gifts and Talents’ before admission.

In the conventional system, students are lumped together into a common system where they compete equally in all disciplines.

Predicting pupils’ abilities at a tender age and admitting them into school to maximise those talents is the key in Oborah’s system.

He says many children under-achieve or become stressed academically due to a mismatch between their abilities and what they are forced to study.

"This is often because teachers or parents have not known their real ability," he says.


He adds: "Most teachers and parents resort to traditional extra class tuitions to make the students cram and memorise facts to pass national examinations."

In colleges and universities, candidates wait until a few days before writing examinations, then get leave from their places of work to cram their notes.

"They can hardly remember anything three months later when a potential job finally beckons," he told The Standard.

But under the Dalc system, referred to as ‘Gift and Talent Testing or Assessment for Prior Learning’, things are done differently.

"Someone’s real career is determined at the onset before admission. This is done using computer technology assessment," he explains.

The test, he says, goes deep into finding out aspects like, ‘who is this learner?’, ‘what can he/she learn and what won’t he/she learn?’

Accurate

"If well applied the tests can give accurate indicators to what an individual can or cannot achieve within the education or academic context," Oborah says.

"Refined abilities in one area could indicate the learner is talented in a specified field, hence a high likelihood of the individual excelling in a given academic field. Alternatively, the absence of such ‘refined’ abilities can be made up for with strengths (gifts and talents) in other areas," he adds.

Oborah says the main aim of the tests is to gather ‘symptoms’ (indicators of potential exhibited by a learner) for use by a career expert in giving a ‘prescription’.

This gives direction for placement in a learning environment with suitable aids and tools for the learner.

His current research is on Biomedically Approached Education, which proposes all learners be assessed professionally and an ‘Academic Prescription’ defined before any learning.

Oborah criticises admission processes based on entrance examinations and grades, arguing they ought to be eliminated.

Admission board

"In Kenya, for example, the research suggests elimination of the Joint Admission Board (which admits student to public universities). Its procedures fail to cater for ‘Academic Incidents’ that would make a very intelligent candidate fail national examinations," he says.

He asks: "What if a candidate was sick a month to examinations or was in and out of class due to lack of schools fees?

If the grade in the examinations results is, say a D+, is it a true reflection of the candidate’s potential?"

No schools

But his most radical prediction is that schools will be no more in the future.

He links the current wave of home-schooling to the exit of age-old traditional school.

In its place, he says, that towards the end of the 21st Century, no one will be required to go to school.

"There will be academic clinics to dispense the academic prescriptions," he predicts.

Oborah is also involved in several activities, nationally and internationally, to promote the concept, which he says would save governments and parents a lot of money in school resources while maximising on quality.

Dr Oborah was born in a village near Lake Victoria to peasant parents who could only manage a meal a day.

His father had to go fishing in Lake Victoria while his mother, younger siblings and himself tended to their small farm.

On completing his primary education, Oborah attended Matinyani Secondary School in Kitui District.

He proceeded to Dagoretti High School before joining the University of Nairobi to study medicine.

He later changed his course to study mathematics and computer science.