Ministry should deal with real issues in Education sector

By Wachira Kigotho

The new quota system by the Ministry of Education has signalled to public primary schools that there is nothing wrong with mediocrity.

For decades, pupils in public primary schools have never required affirmative action to join national schools. Many Kenyans remember with nostalgia the good performance of public primary schools that include Olympic Primary in Kibera, Buru Buru I Primary School in Eastlands, Shikunga West in Butere and Lugulu Girls Primary in Bungoma, among so many other public schools. Parents may recall overall good performance of public primary schools in rural districts of Nyandarua, Turkana, Makueni and Baringo. The falling performance in public primary schools attests to falling standards of education.

Despite political rhetoric, education standards have been heavily compromised by introduction of the Free Primary Education. Evidence indicates there are so many other salient issues that outweigh abolition of fees in primary schools.

According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) report, Reaching the Marginalised, enrolling in school is just the first step towards acquiring education. In the Kenyan case, many pupils attend schools without proper classrooms or adequate learning facilities, such as desks, toilets, water, chalkboards and textbooks.

A recent study by Unesco on the status of public primary schools in the country found that many are in bad condition. The researchers found some classrooms have only roofs and no walls. In most schools, floors are not cemented – good ground for jigger causing fleas.

Besides lack of amenable learning facilities in most public primary schools, Unesco researchers noted free learning enrolment has stabilised. However, chronic teacher absenteeism that also encouraged pupils to skip school has impacted negatively on learning.

Teacher absenteeism is common in public primary schools. The magnitude of the problem of teachers skipping class has slowed performance, accelerated grade repetition and increased dropout rates.

According to Unesco, quality of schooling has also taken a nosedive in public schools because teachers are working fewer hours compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the world. Even as the Ministry of Education rescinds the new quota system in provincial secondary schools selection due to public outcry, there is need to address governance issues in public primary and secondary schools. Education officials and teachers are aware that mass failure in any norm-referenced examination is as a result of pupils not covering the stipulated syllabus, poor teaching and bad examination techniques.

Studies carried by Unesco and the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research (Kippra) and Analysis indicate overcrowding is no longer a serious issue in most public schools, especially in rural areas. For instance teacher-pupil ratio in Embu currently stands at 1:29, Kericho 1:42, Kisumu 1:44, Mwingi 1:38, Nairobi 1:42 and Gucha 1:38. Granted that there could be higher ratios in some districts, the above statistics attest the much touted overcrowding not to be too significant to contribute mass failure in public schools.

Realities

"Whereas pupil-teacher ratio is an indicator of school quality, most public schools continued to perform poorly even when they had favourable ratios," says Kippra. Such finding has also been correlated by the Ministry of Education’s own National Assessment System for Monitoring Learner Achievement (Nasmla).

Realities that should dawn on the Ministry of Education are that the education system is being decided at economic whims.

According to Dr Alice Sullivan an educational researcher at the Institute of Education, University of London, economic advantage is increasingly becoming a strong predictor of education achievement, not just in developed countries, but also in developing ones.

"Our research shows that while parenting is important, a policy focus on parenting alone is insufficient to tackle the impacts of social inequalities on children," says Sullivan. The issue is that the rich are making school choices that benefit their children. Parents with ability to pay are now educating their children in private schools, where monitoring of learning is in top gear.

Ideally, needed are measures that would provide most pupils that successfully complete primary education with quality secondary education but not discrimination based on where they were schooling.