By Josephat Siror and Rawlings Otieno
The UN has lauded Kenya’s efforts in improving education to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
A United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (Unesco) study dubbed Education For All End Decade Assessment, which assessed education performance from 2001-2010 indicates the key areas the country has met in education include sustained investment, development of policy frameworks and expansion of basic education.
While releasing the data on Thursday, acting Secretary General, Kenya National Commission for Unesco Evangeline Njoka applauded the efforts by the Government.
“According to these statistics, it is evident that enrolment rates are bearing fruit,” said Dr Njoka. She, however, noted that large populations have not been absorbed into the education system.
However, the challenges contained in the report dwarfed the gains attained over the last decade. Statistics show that key areas among them quality, inaccessibility and lack of monitoring and evaluation portend challenges to the education system.
Unclear definition of literacy, health and protection mechanisms are part of the impediments.
The panel underlined the need to improve on governance and accountability in schools
Girl-child
Education minister Mutula Kilonzo lamented that girls continue to face challenges despite provisions of equality as enshrined in the Constitution.
“Kenyans passed the Constitution and it is unfortunate that the girl-child is still being neglected,” he said.
The minister said that over the years, the Government had enormously invested in the education sector with approximately 21 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product in the 2012/2013 Financial Year.
Unesco’s Prof Joseph Massaquoi lauded the country, saying such improvement reflects the UN global goals.
“Education, or the transmission, acquisition, creation and adaptation of information, knowledge, skills and values is a key lever of sustainable development,” said Massaquoi.
He said that although Kenya had made tremendous efforts in the education sector by increasing the enrollment, it was still faced with a myriad of challenges among them existence of out-of-school children.
In its recommendation, the assessment report provides a useful road map for policy and programme interventions to 2015 and beyond.
The recommendations address such critical themes as policy, monitoring and evaluation, resource mobilisation and allocation, governance and accountability, curriculum implementation and relevance.
