Students stand outside Olympic Primary School in Nairobi’s Kibera slum.
Part 3 in a Series
After the Verdict: Charting a New Course in Kenya
NAIROBI, KENYA – Angela Ngotho, a single mother, struggles to provide her two sons with a quality education. She doubts that providing free laptops to primary school students – a campaign pledge on the agenda of Kenya’s new president – is the best way to improve that quality.
Instead, she says that President Uhuru Kenyatta, who took office in April, should improve Kenya’s public education system so parents are not forced to send children to costly private schools.
“There are too many children and very few teachers,” Ngotho says of public schools. “I prefer sending my children to private schools for the first three years to get a good foundation, before moving them to the more affordable public schools.”
But private school is costly here. When Kenya’s schools reopen in May for a new term, Ngotho’s biggest expense will be the private school fees for her younger son, she says. He recently entered standard one, the earliest level of primary school and the grade for which Kenyatta has pledged to provide laptops.
Ngotho pays 20,000 shillings ($240) every term for her younger son’s private school tuition. Fees to educate her 11-year-old son, a standard-five student in a public school, amount to 3,000 shillings ($35) per term.
Ngotho, who works as a nurse, cannot afford to send both sons to private schools. She says that Kenyatta should improve the quality of public education before he distributes technology to broken schools.
“I wish the new government focused on improving education standards instead of laptops for standard-one children,” she says.
Since assuming office in April, Kenyatta has publicly reiterated his campaign promise to provide free laptops for children entering primary school. But education stakeholders argue that education quality should take precedence and that teachers do not even know how to operate laptops. Officials at the Ministry of Education say that the government is capable of addressing these issues while moving forward with Kenyatta’s laptop proposal.
The Kenyan government abolished fees for primary school education in 2003. This measure boosted enrollment from 62 percent in 1999 to 83 percent in 2010, according to the 2012 UNESCO report, “Education for All Global Monitoring Report.”
But the increase in pupils overwhelmed teaching resources, says Kennedy Buhere, the communications officer for the Ministry of Education.
Kenya’s teacher-to-pupil ratio is currently one teacher for every 47 students, nearly double the global ratio of one teacher for every 24 students, according to the UNESCO report. And even with free primary education, 1 million children in Kenya are still not in school.
Kenyatta’s coalition government – an alliance of four political parties, collectively known as the Jubilee Coalition – addressed many of these shortcomings during the campaign in a manifesto titled “Transforming Kenya: Securing Kenya’s Prosperity.”
Among the manifesto’s education policy proposals were pledges to improve the student-teacher ratio and to cap class sizes at 40 students. But the manifesto’s most contentious pledge was to “work with international partners to provide solar powered lap-top computers equipped with relevant content for every school age child in Kenya.”
Kenyatta reiterated the pledge in his April 9 inauguration speech. He elaborated that his government would implement measures within the first 100 days of his term to ensure that all students entering the standard-one level would receive laptops.
In his remarks at the official opening of Kenya’s Parliament on April 16, he directly addressed constituents who had accused him of being unrealistic.
“My government has committed itself to delivering on the promise of free laptops for our standard-one children starting next year,” he said before Parliament. “Some have said that this is too ambitious. I say that we cannot afford to leave any of our children without tools to compete in the digital age.”
Janet Muthoni serves as national coordinator of the Elimu Yetu Coalition, an umbrella organization of education advocacy groups here. The government should prioritize universal enrollment over free laptops, she says.
Although the government scrapped tuition, public schools can still charge admission fees to cover items the government does not provide, such as desks and school lunches. Children from poor families cannot attend school if their parents cannot afford these costs, Muthoni says.
“The government pays 1,020 shillings for every child to cover books and instructional material costs every year,” she says, an amount equivalent to $12. “It also provides textbooks. But the schools still charge fees, locking out children from poor background[s].”
Providing laptops to incoming standard-one pupils is fine, she says, but it will be expensive. She estimates the project would cost 40 billion shillings (more than $45 million).
“If the project fails, taxpayers would lose a lot of money,” she says. “I would advise the government to drop the idea and consult education stakeholders on how to introduce computer labs in schools.”
Computer labs are a more viable alternative for several reasons, she says.
“This way, computers will be well-maintained, and the risk of theft will be reduced,” she says. “The teachers will also be brought on board. Ninety percent of teachers in Kenya are computer-illiterate.”
But Buhere says the government has already trained 70,000 teachers in computer skills at teachers colleges throughout the country.
The government is simultaneously addressing the problems that hamper public schools while preparing to deliver on Kenyatta’s laptop promise, Buhere says. When the government abolished primary school tuition in 2003, the main objective was to ensure that all children enrolled in school. The government is gradually addressing the strains that this placed on the system, such as a lack of sufficient teaching staff.
Meanwhile, Kenyatta’s specific pledge to distribute laptops is still in the conception stage, Buhere says.
“The president will need to sit down with technocrats in the Ministry of Education to plan how this idea is going to be implemented,” he says.
As Kenyatta’s first 100 days in office elapse, some Kenyans are cynical about the president’s ability to deliver on his campaign promises.
Political commentator and journalist Wycliffe Muga says Kenyatta is taking his campaign manifesto too far by continuing to speak publicly about free laptops for schoolchildren.
“He should have left it just a campaign pledge,” Muga says. “Most people don’t expect politicians to fulfill campaign pledges.”
