Amidst gloom, youth provide reason for audacity of hope audacity

NAIROBI: It was comforting to see thousands of young people full of energy, excitement and happiness celebrate the release of the 2014 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination results. And it was not for nothing.

After four years of toil, it was time to savour sweet victory.

Year on year, according to the Education ministry, the 2014 performance was exceptional.

The hope, the life, the vitality that the youth had, warmed the hearts of many amidst the grim social economic times.

To them, they have the whole world in front of them.

But the exuberance is likely to last for a few more days or weeks, or months or years to come, after which the realities of life in society will set in.

Despite scoring highly in the national exams, only a few of the students could make it to the next level of education because of factors beyond their control.

First, financing university education may prove a challenge to some, especially those from poor backgrounds.

The general perception is that those who pass their exams will be facilitated by the Higher Educations Loans Board (HELB). That is a long shot.

It was former ANC president Oliver Tambo who once said: “A nation that does not invest in its youth does not deserve a future.”

The thousands of students who cannot make it to the next level of learning will be cast into an uncaring society where, amidst rising levels of joblessness, they will have to devise means to fend for themselves.

The youth of yesterday who, incidentally, are in positions of influence in society now are squandering the opportunity to positively transform the country and channel the energies of their youth into meaningful purpose.

The world as an oyster is the quintessence of youth everywhere. That no longer holds true. And no doubt, so much needs to be done to make the youth feel a part of the wider society and care much for it.

The youth who ought to carry on where the older generation have left are seemingly indifferent, demoralised, unpatriotic and care less for society and country.

Unless and until things change, the future is seemingly lost for a generation. And that is manifest in many ways. Desperation has driven despondent young men into drug abuse, irresponsible social behaviour and compelled some to join the growing ranks of radical groups that offer them money after undergoing indoctrination.

 

The decadence and hostility among the youth especially at the Coast is alarming. Recent police raids inside mosques netted hundreds of youth, some of them as young as 15 years but already bearing a grudge against society. At that age, they ought to be under the care and direction of parents, not militant organisations. The future of society is largely dependent on the values that society instils in the youth. Kenya is a society in the grip of politicians dripping with tribalism, claims of corruption, nepotism, who have little time for the youth except once every five years when they hand out inducements to attract votes.

What the youth in Kenya need urgently now are good role models who they can emulate and learn from.

Those ones need to stand up and be counted. What they don’t need are leaders spewing hateful messages that do little to help improve the fortunes of the youth.

None other than the Cabinet Secretary for Devolution, Anne Waiguru, has warned that unless serious efforts are taken to engage the youth in meaningful activities that will keep them away from mischief, the country could experience lots of instability in future. That is true.