Special Report on Education in Kenya

Since 2004 CES Canada has been providing education, health, clean water and nutrition to youth orphaned by the HIV/Aids pandemic living in Kenya.  Despite a number of NGO’s supporting primary school education, there are relatively few at the secondary level.  With sweeping education reform and challenges to provide secondary education for all students, CES is committed to providing access to education for gifted youth who otherwise would be statistical dropouts.

Government funding is not enough to cover all education costs.  Without a uniform a child cannot attend school. Without nutrition the ability to learn is hindered.  Prospects for those orphaned and without a place to live are dismal and without a KCSE diploma, thousands of youth are destined to a life of poverty and despair.

CES News Brief: Kenya Education Reform

• Kenya will now have four different types of secondary schools
• Specialisation (streaming) at senior secondary education level, with students expected to pursue any of the following disciplines — general, technical, talent and vocational education
• The school calendar will run from September to July, unlike the current January to November
• National Standardized testing remains at the end of primary, junior and senior secondary school
• Community Service outreach programmes are planned for all learners

Broadly, the new report proposes to scrap the 8-4-4 system and replace it with a 2-6-3-3-3 system. In the new structure, a child will take two years in pre-school, six in primary, three in junior secondary, three in senior secondary and three at university. The new changes should begin in September 2013 and will target those currently in Standard Four.

Talent and vocational secondary schools are entirely new. Talent schools will offer courses in performing and creative arts such as music, drama and games besides the common courses. Vocational secondary schools will focus on artisan and trade courses in addition to the common academic subjects.

Some of the core subjects are citizenship education, entrepreneurship, environmental studies, information technology and languages. Emphasis has been put on continuous assessment tests rather than the end-cycle exams that are faulted for failing to reflect the true abilities of learners.

The changes mean preparing a new curriculum and publishing new textbooks. Learning will be free from early childhood to senior secondary school level and collectively, this will be considered basic education.

According to Education Minister Sam Ongeri, “The new system should focus on child development, skills and competencies to be learned and ultimate outcome at each level from early childhood care and development to university level.”

CES News Brief: Kenya Education Reform

The ultimate success of Kenya’s education system will be measured by its ability to give equal access to all candidates and provide qualified skills into the labour market to drive the economy. The country’s secondary education system is unable to meet the pressing needs of an expanding number of young people orphaned by HIV/Aids.

According to Ministry of Education Permanent Secretary Professor James ole Kiyiapi, “Education is the greatest social equaliser. If we leave it to the private sector, we will create a social apartheid, where only the rich can access it — and it is already happening. Our education system is fundamentally flawed. We are condemning our children too early in life. The reason why KCPE is so brutal is that we don’t have enough spaces in secondary school.”

By March 2012 the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examinations (KCSE) results will be out and more than half of the students will miss out on admissions to universities.  National statistics overall are grim:

• only one in five of the 2.1 million children who start primary school will make it to high school; of these, just one in 12 can expect to join a public university
• only two per cent of those who started Standard One join public universities under the
  government-funded programme
• Last year, 776,000 pupils sat for the KCPE, but in 2012 only 570,000 are enrolling in Form 1

So what would it take to ensure that all Standard 8 leavers today get to go to Form 1 next year?

Assuming the average classroom to have 45 students, then an additional 4,500 classrooms are needed to accommodate the 200,000 pupils who missed being placed.  Kenya has about 5,200 public secondary schools; this means that if four out of five secondary schools added just one extra classroom, every primary school leaver could have the chance to join Form 1 in 2012.

Building 4,500 classrooms will cost approximately $10,000 Cdn for each.  Since 2006, 1100 public primary and 1600 secondary schools have been built.  Secondary education is expensive to set up and maintain. For example, it takes approximately $5000 to set up an already built primary school and five times that amount for a secondary school.  There are no funds for general wear and tear and equipment breakdowns.  Government spending per student is even more revealing. It costs more than 10 times to maintain a student in secondary school than it does in primary school — over the past five years, the government spent an average of just Ksh921 ($11) a year on every primary school pupil in the public school system, but spent Ksh10,265 ($125) on every secondary school student.

CES Canada is committed to strengthening the school community of Kakamega and beyond.  Since 2010 five wells have been created and building projects in two schools are now established.  The completion of classrooms for Musaga SS and a new dormitory for St Mary Goretti Girls SS at Shikoti will be the focus for 2012-13.  This year 165 students in 26 secondary schools will add to the growing number of students that CES Canada has assisted over the past seven years.