"A Reading Nation is a Living Nation" - Universal Primary Education in Kenya

Submitted by Trudy White
GCI Participant - FHF Member
March 21, 2006

Achieving universal primary education by 2015 is the second Millennium Development Goal (MDG). Many countries around the world are now well within sight of achieving this goal. However, this is not the case in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 45 million children still do not attend school.

As a member of Farmers Helping Farmers’ Global Classroom team, I have been visiting schools and community-based projects in Kenya. Traveling across this amazing country, I have asked many Kenyans what they would like me to tell Canadians about their country. Many times the response has been "Tell them we have Free Primary Education!" Unlike most other countries in Africa, universal primary education is now a struggling reality, here, and an achievement most Kenyans are very proud of.

Free Primary Education, (FPE - as it is called), was an election promise of Kenya’s current president, Mwai Kibaki. In keeping that promise, the Kenyan government abolished school fees in December, 2002. Within a month, school enrollment had jumped by more than a million students, some of them in school for the first time and many of them orphans. Classrooms were seriously overcrowded and resources were minimal - if they existed at all. Providing Free Primary Education has certainly not been easy for Kenya and there continue to be many problems. Still, many more Kenyan children are now going to school and despite all the challenges, most Kenyans will tell you things are slowly getting better.

Some of the improvements they have told us about are the abolition of corporal punishment, an increase in funding for schools with programs for special needs students, new school quality control standards and inspectors, and a separate books and materials fund that aims to put a minimum number of text books into every classroom. (The goal is to have one textbook for every 3 students in primary school and one book per 2 students in secondary school.) Imagine the challenges that sharing books creates for students who are studying for national exams that will determine their placements for future educational opportunities! Students must spend many hours before and after their regular classes in "prep time" so they can have use of the books they need to do their homework and study for exams. One Head Teacher told us his school allowed students who had school bags to take books home for studying but he also acknowledged that most students’ families would not be able to afford such a bag. But still – there are now at least some books in all public school classrooms and a new curriculum has attempted to make these materials more appealing, up to date, and accessible to the students.
Another important advance we noted during our visits to schools is the integration of HIV/AIDS education into various subjects of the curriculum. Even children as young as grades 4 and 5 are learning about AIDS and its devastating effects. Teachers have also received professional development traing in AIDS education and in virtually every staff room we saw a poster promoting HIV/AIDS awareness. (Photo - text book focused on HIV/AIDS education.)

Kenya’s 2005 MDG Status Report examines the progress made in this country towards achieving universal primary education. It notes that government spending for education increased from 8.1 to 22.7 billion shillings between 2002 and 2005. However, it also states that approximately 7% of the country’s primary school aged children are still not enrolled. Most of these live in the northern regions where the people are nomadic and education requires staying in one place. In these regions and also in some of the areas now affected by drought, the government has begun school feeding programs as a way of attracting more children to school and providing them with some basic nutrition. The MDG Status Report also tells us that while gender parity has been achieved in the younger grades, girls are still more likely than boys to drop out of school early because of pregnancies or being needed at home to care for ailing parents or younger siblings.

I found it interesting that most of the teachers we met send their own children to private schools. I guess that’s because they are fully aware of the challenges and limitations still facing the public system. Not enough teachers, poor facilities, lack of resources, and a growing number of orphans needing additional care - these issues came up again and again as we visited schools. Class size was another issue – especially in the urban areas, where there can be as many as 80 or even 100 students in a classroom! (40 to 1 is the government’s student to teacher ratio goal.)
But, for me, the most heart-breaking limitation of Kenya’s new FPE is the fact that so many of Kenya’s bright and eager students will not have the opportunity to go on to secondary schools. Secondary education is not free in Kenya and many families simply cannot afford it. Only about 54% of Kenya’s youth will have an opportunity to continue their schooling past Standard 8. But that is a topic for another time. For now, let us celebrate with our Kenyan friends the fact that most of this generation of young people will be literate. This quote from a calendar at one of the schools we visited sums it up well, "A reading nation is a living nation."