Nairobi:  African countries should pump in more money in the educational field to boost the continent's education image.

Delivering a key note speech at the beginning of a two-day symposium on education excellence organized by Christ the Teacher Institute for Education at Tangaza College, a constituency of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (March 5-6), Kenyan Professor George Eshiwani said in some cases, "educational budgets were much lower than those of defense,"

He said education in all stages-basic, middle and higher levels, should strive for quality education for the learner. "In some cases, some of our educational programs have driven the learner to exams per excellence only," the Kenyan Professor further told the audience, comprising of lecturers and students drawn from various universities-public and privately owned.

In his address on quality of education in institutions of higher education, the Kenyan Education Secretary Professor George Godia said the Kenyan Government was committed to instituting more universities, but was quite concerned about the issue of quality education in the fast coming up institutes of higher learning-universities.

Closing the symposium, Prof. Standa said the Kenyan Government was in support of the existence of middle level colleges such as polytechnics and other vocational training institutes, for, he reasoned out, "you can hardly have an engineer without a technician."

Professor Standa was answering a question from the floor to the effect that there seemed to have been a move within the ministry to have technical institutes such as polytechnics and vocational training colleges, phased out.

The two-day symposium focused its deliberations on the learner and graduate characteristics in respect to quality education and curriculum contextualization-moral values, ethics and people building.

Other topics of discussion were methods of teaching and learning, assessment and E-learning, teaching and learning resources and quality of educators in institutions of higher education.