Abstract:
Education is key to individual and national development. Promoting education to excellence is critical to socio- economic growth, high productivity increased earnings and reduction of poverty. With increased education, all other facets of life are improved: there is a healthier nation, enhanced democracy, better leadership, and good governance and ultimately a positive move towards development is achieved. The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations International Education Fund (UNICEF) and other international organizations strongly advocate for Education for All (EFA), a call which has been adopted globally. At the World Education Forum (Dakar, 2000) which Kenya subscribes to governments pledged to achieve EFA goals by 2015. In the development framework, Vision 2030 which is a blueprint towards increase to access to Education and the Millennium Development Goals complement each other in Kenya’s quest in achieving EFA goals. Matters of education in Kenya are of high priority as evidenced through the budgetary allocation towards the education sector which ranks amongst the top .In 2013/2014 financial year alone it stood at K, Shs 234 billion. Despite all the efforts undertaken to improve access to and quality of education EFA objectives face major challenges. Up till today 5% of schools going age children are not enrolled in schools, there is a high wastage rate at primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education. There are ill- prepared graduates who cannot function effectively in the world of work coupled with high unemployment rates. This scenario, dim as it may seem, can be remedied through thorough consideration of incorporating holistic approaches to the curriculum in schools. The school curriculum is meant to cover three main dimensions namely formal, informal and non formal. However, in Kenya, there is over emphasis on the formal aspect of the curriculum alone ignoring the latter two dimensions which are of equal importance for achievement of education goals and objectives. Too much emphasis is laid on passing examinations driving schools into the obsession of realizing high mean scores. The craze for passing examinations gives little regard to whether the means employed are ethical or justified. These means fail to recognize and respect the fact that each individual learner is endowed with different and unique talents, qualities and potentials that require nurturing. Naturally, scores of Kenyans have realized their potentials through promotion of non- formal curricular activities such as games and sports, creative arts and clubs and societies. This paper therefore explores the non- formal curricular activities as a way of realizing holistic development of learners, which lends into all rounded development of learners and wider openings in the world of work and consequently development by suggesting some paradigm shift.
