Why pupils may continue learning under trees

By Wachira Kigotho

"Don’t worry! Come January, your children will be in school," Education Minister Sam Ongeri assured parents recently over the donor suspension of the free primary education.

According to Ongeri, there is no linkage between resource allocation and school access and attendance. Such views are also held by Education Permanent Secretary Karega Mutahi who has dismissed donor funding of free primary education as inconsequential.

Whereas nobody has denied that the Government funds 95 per cent of free primary education, most of those finances go to teachers salaries. State-owned Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis warns allocation of resources in public schools will continue being difficult because of the high teachers’ pay budget.

In a paper, Achieving Universal Primary Education in Kenya, Kippra says with the Government spending virtually nothing on learning resources, the country is unlikely to attain education for all by 2015. Like elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, temporary structures represent a large share of classrooms in Kenya’s primary schools.

Donor contribution

Consequently, that is how the donor contribution, no matter how little in the eyes of education officials was vital in improving physical and learning facilities. For instance part of the Sh1.2 billion withheld by the British Department for International Development (DfID) was to help in building new classrooms, improving sanitation facilities and expanding supply of textbooks and instructional materials for 18,000 schools.

But there seems little commitment on the part of the Government in reigning perpetrators of corruption in education sector. Behaving like a common thief caught with his hands in the till, some of the suspended education official’s claim without mentioning names claim ‘big fish’ are still in office.

As education officials denied any wrong doing, Government spokesman Alfred Mutua recently muddied the waters further by accusing media of disinformation. "It is secondary school money which is missing. The Government is fully committed to fund free primary education with or without donor assistance," said Mutua.

A lesson taking place under a tree at Rabuor Primary School in Kisumu. Part of the funds suspended by donors was to help build classrooms and sanitation facilities. [Photo: FILE/STANDARD]

Trivialising issue

But even without trivialising the issue of misuse of funds, the education system is in crisis. Gross enrolment rate may have increased to 103 per cent in 2003, but already there are signs that it is getting hard to retain some of those students in school.

The issue is that public primary school infrastructure, especially in rural areas and urban slums are not growing fast enough to cater for all school-age children. But even worse, many existing schools are unsafe and unsuitable for learning.

According to a World Bank report, many schools have no working sanitary facilities such as toilets or even pit-latrines. "Others have no offices or storage space for learning materials," says Serge Theunynck, a senior education implementation specialist.

Besides, in some schools, pupils sit on stones or broken desks. Evidence suggests such conditions have a significant negative impact on whether children will attend and complete primary school. Such conditions also encourage teacher absenteeism.

The abysmal conditions in public schools have encouraged development of private schools that cater for wealthy households.

Subsequently, the dismal academic performance of public primary schools compared to private counterparts is not about to end. Evidence indicates greater disparities in future, unless radical reforms are taken at the Ministry of Education.

Unfortunately, most of education managers at Jogoo House are not interested in undertaking reforms that would benefit children from poor households. Few of them seem to be aware of the emerging academic achievement gap among different social economic groups.

Prof Dennis Condron, a leading sociologist at Emory University says academic divide among social groups is increasingly determined by school factors.

"School conditions play a big role in fuelling achievement gaps," says Condron while addressing the American Sociological Association on education inequalities globally.

Mixed signals

These were the elements that were expressed by Alistair Fernie, the Head of DfID in Kenya, when he commented on the Sh100 million fraud at the ministry. "We thought that money was going to be used to improve education for kids: buy more textbooks, build better classrooms and improve teaching," said Fernie.

As the US joins Britain in withholding funds for basic education, concerns are emerging over deteriorating quality of primary education in public schools. If the Government is serious about education for all, it should stop giving mixed signals that it has condoned ‘eating of money’ meant for public schools by its officers.