Quality dips in the wake of increased enrolment in public schools

By Wachira Kigotho

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Globally, aims of education have ceased from merely being a vehicle for transmitting culture from one generation to another to a powerful tool of empowering individuals with knowledge, skills and confidence they need to shape a better future for themselves.

According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, education counts as it helps to eradicate poverty by boosting productivity and innovations and ostensibly open doors to jobs and credit. "One extra year of schooling increases an individual’s earnings by ten per cent," says Unesco’s Director-General Irina Bokova

Off the mark

However, the value of education lies in its quality. This is what has preoccupied American and European Union education officials since December 7, 2010, when students from Shanghai City in China were reported to have outperformed their counterparts in 70 developed countries in reading, mathematics and science in the highly respected standardised test, the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa).

Speaking during the release of Pisa results, Chester Finn, a former senior official in the United States Department of Education, who has keenly been watching improvement of education in China over the years observed: "I’ve seen how relentless the Chinese are at accomplishing goals, and if they can do this in Shanghai, they can do it in 10 cities in 2020 and in 50 cities by 2030."

Undoubtedly, Kenya’s education system may be off the mark in quality compared to China’s, and indeed other developed countries, but there are concerns that improved access to school ushered by introduction of the free primary education has not been accompanied by enhanced quality. The emerging scenario is that our education system is becoming deeply rooted in inequalities linked to wealth, gender and location.

Results of last year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education have clear signals that struggle for good academic outcomes are being decided on economic battlefronts.

Preliminary analysis of pupils who scored more than 415 marks in the last year’s KCPE indicated over 85 per cent were from private primary schools. And this is not an isolated case as statistics show private schools have been posting better results than their public counterparts in the exam in recent years.

Basically this trend has been magnified since 2003 when tuition fees were making it possible more children to access education. "But after securing a place in school, how much are these children learning in dilapidated and overcrowded classrooms?" asks Unesco in a position paper on free primary education in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Granted, Kenya may be on course towards achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals on Education, as Education Minister Sam Ongeri pointed out, but the rosy dream of free schooling has dimmed. Parents who are able to pay school fees have withdrawn their children from public schools and shepherded them to academies, as private schools are sometimes called.

Free schooling

Studies carried by the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis indicate demand for private primary education is on the rise. According to the report, Determinants of Primary Schooling in Kenya, on average the number of private schools has been increasing by over 1000 schools each year since 2003. By last year there were 8,124 private schools, comprising 30 per cent of total primary schools in the country. But whereas the number of private schools has been steadily increasing, the rate of establishment of public schools has stagnated at one per cent per year since 2003. The situation has resulted in overcrowding in public schools, which has impacted negatively on teacher-pupil ratio and subsequently on teachers’ effectiveness and motivation.

So whereas the free primary education has reduced inequality in access to schooling, it has in practice reduced academic achievement among pupils attending public primary schools. "Reduced academic attainment has led pupils from rich backgrounds to free to private schools," says Prof Mwangi Kimenyi, a senior research fellow and director of the Africa Growth Initiative of the Global Economy and Development Programme at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Bridging course

Even as the Ministry of Education plans to introduce secondary education bridging courses for low-performing pupils in KCPE, those studies will basically target the poor. Although Education Permanent Secretary James ole Kiyapi is upbeat about introducing ‘senior primary’ or ‘junior secondary’ as an alternative route to secondary education, the truth of the matter is that the Government will be introducing repetition through the back door for pupils with gaps in skills and competencies that should have been covered in primary schools.

Basically the Ministry of Education in that matter could pave the way forward by improving the quality of education in primary schools and safe the country ambiguous reforms that would lower quality of education even further. According to a study carried by the International Research on Working Children in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam in various parts of the country, pupils’ academic outcomes can be significantly improved by reducing overcrowding, improving quality of teaching through supervision and in-service training, instilling teachers and pupil’s disciple.

Studies carried out by the local National Assessment System for Monitoring Learner Achievement ( Nasmla) and Unesco’s Southern and East African Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (Sacmeq) identify teacher absenteeism and poor teaching techniques as some of the key barriers to learning achievement. It is quite evident that work ethic is amazingly absent among most teachers in Kenya who are reported by Unesco to work the least number of hours.