by Hollie Nielsen, AWC Central Scotland and AWC London
In January, the Education Team is focusing on SDG Target 4.5: eliminate gender disparities in education. In addition, because our Target Project 5 Awesome Blossoms is located in Nairobi, Kenya, this month we are also looking at education in Kenya, including in the slums.
The Kenyan national educational system consists of three levels: eight years of compulsory primary education (beginning at age six), four years at the secondary level, and four years of higher education. The government provides free primary and secondary education. Entrance into secondary school is contingent upon obtaining the Kenyan Certificate of Primary Education by passing a national exam. Kenya’s literacy rate, at more than four-fifths of the population, is high for sub-Saharan Africa.
Pre-pandemic, nationwide enrolment in primary school was 93%; however, only 63% of Kenyan boys and 68% of girls complete primary education, and only 53% enroll in secondary school. In addition, while Kenya has reached gender parity at the primary school level, few girls fully complete their secondary education due to several socio-economic factors, including teenage pregnancies, early marriages, poverty and lack of mentorship.
Despite the Kenyan government prioritizing education, Kenyan public education is rife with inadequate facilities, insufficient and often poorly trained teachers, overcrowded classrooms and poor results. The teacher deficit stands at over 90,000. Until the 2022 order to hire 30,000 new teachers, only enough were employed to replace those retiring or leaving the profession through natural attrition. The lack of infrastructure is a challenge which the government hasn’t met over the years. Some learners continue to attend lessons under trees.
Kenya has huge regional inequalities in all education outcomes, with much lower outcomes in rural areas and for lower-income populations, especially those in the slums. Nine in ten children from poor households fail to complete eighth grade. Compounded by the pandemic, these challenges have led to learning losses and deepened inequalities in education. Around 17 million students and more than 320,000 teachers were affected by the closure of 30,000 primary and secondary schools in 2020. Efforts to provide remote learning revealed a significant digital divide, with over 50% of the students being left out, mainly due to lack of appropriate electronic devices, access to electricity and internet connectivity.
Nairobi has a population of 3 million, half of whom live in slum conditions. The two largest slums in Nairobi are Kibera and Mathare Valley. In Kibera, there are no public schools and there are over 100,000 orphaned children. 43% of the girls and 29% of the boys attend no school at all. In Mathare Valley, there are two public schools for 70,000 students. Although primary education is free, students must wear school uniforms, which is a barrier to entry for children living in the slums. In slum areas, class size is often 100 students, with five students frequently sharing a desk. The absence of free secondary schooling in slums means that many of the young people there are excluded from education after age 14. Children who are not engaged in school through the eighth grade are quickly consumed by a culture of gangs, drugs and criminal activity for boys, and a world of rape, exploitation, and prostitution resulting in early, unwanted pregnancy for girls. Many thousands of youngsters in Kenya from slum communities grow up without hope – without the opportunities and skills that would enable them, against the odds, to break the cycle of poverty and hopelessness.
A teacher at a primary school in the informal settlement of Mathare in Nairobi—who described her students as “promising young boys and girls from extremely poor backgrounds”—illustrated this dynamic of multidimensional poverty during the pandemic: “Our pupils live in slums grappling with sanitization issues like lack of water. They live with siblings and extended family relatives in small houses and lack basic items like food. Most of the parents to these children have lost their sources of livelihoods due to the pandemic, making their already strained living conditions much worse.”
Kenya: Submission to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
“Learning remains one of the most critical assets for any country to promote equitable growth and poverty reduction, and that cannot happen without a solid foundation,” said Pedro Cerdan-Infantes, World Bank Senior Economist. “While the Education sector faces treacherous sources of inequality including uneven quality and results, Kenya has embarked on ambitious reforms to address the quality issues rather than considering the job done by virtue of near-universal access and coverage.” Let’s hope the reforms lead to better results for all children, especially girls and children living in the slums.
References:
Kenya – Education, Literacy, Schools | Britannica
Kenya’s school reform is entering a new phase in 2023 – but the country isn’t ready
Lessons from Kenya’s Education Reforms
Helping more girls complete basic education in Kenya
Kenya: Submission to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Cheery Children Education Centre
Photo from Canva.com
