The Daily O’Collegian

Free school system still out of reach for many Kenyan children

Editor’s note: This is the first part in a three-day series about Kenya, Africa.

KENYA, Africa — It’s tough to make it in a third-world country if you don’t have an education. But it’s even harder to get an education when you don’t have enough money to eat, let alone pay for school.

“There is what we call the vicious cycle of poverty,” one pastor says. “I am poor, I cannot take child to school. This child of mine will not get a job, because this child did not go to school. That means no income — that means this person becomes poor.

“This means that this person, if he or she is going to start building up a family, that family will not go to schools, then means no income … that is poverty.”

As a community leader, Stephen Kabuba, a Presbyterian minister in Juja, Kenya, says his job is not only to pray with people but also to serve as a social agent.

During his years as a minister, he has seen the devastating scars poverty can leave.

“If somebody has dropped out of school because of a problem, I [don’t] just pray for that person and encourage,” Kabuba says. “I should also ask why this person is not in school. That makes me go beyond the church boundaries.”

Kenya didn’t emerge as an independent country until 1963, Kabuba says. Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, identified three challenges the young nation faced: diseases, ignorance and poverty.

“These three, about 43 years down the line, they are still a challenge to this nation,” he says.

But Kabuba says he thinks tackling the issue of education is key.

“To me, education is the backbone,” he says. “It’s the one that can eliminate diseases, because if people know what causes the disease, they may be able to overcome it.”

Nearly 121 million children are not attending schools worldwide, according to the UNICEF Web site.

After the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, the United Nations declared the right to free primary education (up to eighth grade) to be a basic human right, according to the UN Web site.

But it wasn’t until 2003 that Kenya joined the free education bandwagon, Kabuba says.

Yet many children are still not able to attend school … but why?

Free really isn’t free

Education may be a small price to pay in comparison to ignorance and illiteracy, but many people living in third-world countries can’t afford to pay even the small prices.

Once you throw uniforms, school supplies and lunches into the educational mix, public education in Kenya costs about $40 a year, Kabuba says.

It’s not that people don’t understand the importance of education, it’s simply that they can’t afford it.

“There’s a saying in Kenya,” Kabuba says. “The greatest gift you can give to a child is education.” But the majority of Kenyans live on the poverty line.

“That is, they live with less than $1 a day,” he says.

Parents also rely on their children to contribute to the family income, Kabuba says. And when surviving daily living is in question, putting one’s child through the education system isn’t a practical first priority.

“Even if it’s free … when one has a child, that child should be not only going to school but should be part of production,” Kabuba says.

One teacher at a rural public school in Nanyuki, Kenya, says although the free education system brought more children into schools, the drop-out rates are high.

“Due to the free education, they have come,” Joseph Karuoya says. “But because of the drive of poverty, you find that even though they have come, at times they also drop out of school because of the same reasons — the poverty at home.”

AIDS has taken countless lives in Kenya, which leaves even more countless orphans. Karuoya says once children reach about 12 years old, they are old enough to understand why they don’t have a mom or dad anymore, which affects their schooling.

“We find the child automatically drops in the performance, and when they are studying for the exam, that child doesn’t perform as she used to do or as expected,” Karuoya says.

Cost of secondary school

Many times, even if a child’s family is able to pay the minimal fees of primary schools, secondary schooling is still not free.

Less than 60 percent of all children who attend primary school go on to secondary school, Kabuba says.

Moses Wambugu, the head teacher of Njogu-ini Primary School in Nanyuki, says getting children to secondary school is a big problem.

“There are cases of students doing so well, being admitted into such good (secondary) schools, but the parents can’t afford (it),” Wambugu says. “So what do they do? They drop out.”

Wambugu says public secondary schools can cost up to about $450 a year.

If parents can barely afford $40 a year, 10 times that amount is out of the question. Unless a child gets a secondary education, he or she cannot even be eligible for the university.

Kabuba says it’s difficult to gain a decent job without a secondary level education, but having a little education is better than none.

“It’s very unfortunate that many won’t go to secondary school,” Kabuba says. “So many don’t go to (secondary) school.”

Karuoya says as a teacher, preparing students for an education they will probably never receive is frustrating.

“And you can imagine, we have been working up and down to see that the children have passed (the exam to get into secondary school),” Karuoya says. “But to find that even when they pass, they don’t go anyway.”

Lack of funding and overcrowding

Plain and simple, the government isn’t giving enough money.

“We have to rely on the parents to supplement what the government is doing,” says Laban Nwiriuki, the principal of Njogu-ini.

But when the average income for a family is less than $1 a day or when children are parentless, the school doesn’t receive money to make up for what the government isn’t providing.

Nwiriuki also says schools can’t expect a fixed dollar amount from the government; disbursements are given randomly, leaving schools in limbo.

“We don’t know for how long we shall stay before the government raises another disbursement,” he says.

The time between when money is given is also a problem.

“Last year, [disbursements] were given in January and in September, so sometimes we don’t have a lot we can do because we don’t have money,” Nwiriuki says.

Wambugu says each child is provided with about six books, but they really need 10 to complete his or her curriculum.

The introduction of free education has also created a large influx in the number of students. Kabuba says student-teacher ratios mirror about 55 students per teacher, making teaching more difficult.

But Wambugu says this isn’t a problem entirely.

“Well, in one way, it’s a problem, but in another way, it’s something positive,” he says. “Because when the free primary was not there, these children could not have gone to school.”

Kabuba says the UN also declared one of the objectives of primary education should include the development of good social skills. But oftentimes, older children who are just starting their schooling are mixed with younger children.

“But a child that is 16 will not do very well with a child that is 10 years old,” Kabuba says. “So the development of good social skills is eroded.”

Wambugu says sometimes children as old as 16 will be mixed with 6 year olds, depending on their level of education.

“But still we are trying to accommodate them,” Wambugu says.

Although the Kenyan education system still has some kinks that need to be worked out, offering free primary education is a big step.

“Free education has done a lot,” Kabuba says. “… Because the children who otherwise wouldn’t be going to school, they are now going to school.”