Kenya’s education faces many challenges. Some students learn under trees due to lack of class buildings. They lack text books and note books, pencils, etc. Millions of pupils walk long distances to school. Many pupils from different grades are forced to share one classroom facing opposite directions. Many schools are mud-walled with rough floors. Many lack doors and windows. The schools are hardly maintained. Very few schools exists for children with special needs. The teacher-student ratio is overwhelming. Teachers are heavily overworked yet poorly paid. Pupils also do not get high quality education. About 900,000 pupils finish primary schools but less than 50% graduate at secondary level. Lack of school fees has been the hindrance for poor children proceeding with education beyond Class 8. Worse very brilliant students do not proceed with learning for luck of fees. The situation is worse at college and university levels. Since all students here have to pay college/university fees, brilliant children of the most poverty-stricken families hardly make it there. Many poor families end up selling all their most valuables assets like land, plots, houses, etc to educate their children who upon graduation hardly get jobs hence both the parents/families and the graduate end up in unimaginable cycle of poverty.
While so much sufferings ail the education sector, corruption is rife everywhere. Kenya loses 40% of its GDP to graft every year. Donors gave millions to support Kenya’s free education system etc. Much of this money was stolen by the leaders. The UK and Canada demanded a refund of their $78 million and $2million respectively. Thus looting of educational funds has undermined delivery of high quality education to Kenyan students and the expansion of free education to secondary and tertiary institutions.
GGT-K will seek the implementation of about 30 Actions. This shall radically change Kenya’s educational approach in a manner never seen for the last 30 years or since independence. These measures shall for example see a massive expansion and enrolment of secondary and tertiary education levels, high quality education whose credentials are recognized worldwide managed by a highly motivated professional teaching workforce. The welfare of teachers, lecturers, and professors shall be central in this scheme. It shall seek to have Government undertake deliberate measures aimed at improving education situation of the marginalized regions of Northern Kenya including ensuring all students who sat the KCPE classes joined Form One class. Greater support shall also be provided to counties with low post-primary school enrolment such as Counties at the coastal region. Major support measures shall be accorded to girls without neglecting the boy child.
See Links
- Missing millions puts Kenya education at risk
- Hali mbaya ya shule za msingi katika kaunti ya Homa Bay
- In Kenya, a new kind of classroom
- The Turkana School Under A Tree
- Samburu children school
- Marsabit mobile school helping to boost literacy levels among nomadic communities