What's keeping Kenyan children from school?

Attainment of Universal Primary Education has been a long-term objective for the Government of Kenya (GoK) since independence. But declining gross enrolment rates and completion rates of less than 50 per cent over the past 10 years present a considerable challenge to policy-makers. Why are children dropping out of school? Is poverty solely to blame?

A study by the country’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, supported by DFID analyses the effects of education cost and stakeholder perceptions of quality on participation rates. This study, the Kenya National Primary Baseline (NPB), incorporated the UNESCO sponsored SACMEQ survey of Kenyan Primary Education.

Although primary education is ‘freely’ available in theory, the NPB suggests that parents, on average, pay 60 per cent of the cost of primary education through direct and indirect costs. With 47 per cent of the rural population and 29 per cent of the urban population living below the poverty line, many parents are forced to choose how many of their children they can afford to send to school.

Parents are also challenging the quality and relevance of the education received and calling for a more academic core curriculum. Each of the 13 existing curriculum subjects requires a heavy and costly textbook and lack of resources means that practical subjects are either taught theoretically or left out altogether. However, for most Kenyan children, primary education is all the formal education they will receive and needs to be broad enough to prepare them for the world of work.

Key findings from the study include:

• There is an over-supply of teaching, administrative and inspectorate staff. Although spending on primary education in Kenya is relatively high in relation to overall GDP, the vast majority goes on salaries.
• Pupils are most likely to drop out after Standard 1 and Standard 6. Suggested causes include school environment and teaching style at Standard 1 and weaker pupils at Standard 6 being encouraged to repeat a year to improve exam results and consequently improve school success ratings.
• 61 per cent of Standard 6 pupils repeat a year and 23 per cent have repeated two or more times resulting in considerable wastage of resources.
• 38 per cent of schools heads believe their school is in need of major repairs and the ratio of pupils to latrines can be as high as 89:1.
• Although most pupils interviewed like school, many are afraid of corporal punishment and dislike copying from the blackboard. A lack of reprographic facilities and textbooks means pupils can spend much of their time copying or learning by rote.
• The opportunity to earn money through domestic service, crop picking or herding has a negative effect on school enrolment in some areas.

Rationalisation of the inspectorate has begun, coupled with a new approach to inspection, while attempts to re-deploy teachers on a rational basis commenced in 2000, but has met with great resistance. The implementation of a large poverty-focused textbook programme (from 2000), including mechanisms to ensure accountability to parents in schools, could make a key difference by reducing the cost and improving the quality of education received.

Other recommendations for policy-makers include:

• establishing minimum standards for all aspects of school including infrastructure and materials
• developing a system of accountability and transparency with community and parental involvement, to decrease education costs and improve its quality and relevance
• abandoning the use of examination results to gauge school effectiveness or complementing them with data such as repetition and completion rates.

Source(s):
'Identifying and addressing the causes of declining participation rates in Kenyan primary schools' by J. Ackers, J. Migoli and J. Nzomo, International Journal of Educational Development, 21, p. 361-372, 2001

Funded by: DFID + UNESCO

id21 Research Highlight: 23 October 2002

Further Information:
Jim Ackers
Educational Planning
School of Lifelong Learning and International Development
Institute of Education
University of London
20 Bedford Way
London
WC1H 0AL
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6000
Contact the contributor: jim@ackersw.freeserve.co.uk

Institute of Education, University of London, UK

Other related links:
'School-community ties wear thin: how stakeholders view the decline of Nigeria’s primary schools'

'To school or not to school? School enrolment in India'

'Evaluating education - participatory performance indicators'

'Achieving schooling for all – lessons in education spending'

'Hitting the target: doubling primary enrolments in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015'

FAO's Sustainable Development Department is committed to improving school attendance in rural areas