British Commonwealth donates US $920,000 for education

The British Commonwealth Education Fund (BCEF) is to donate US $920,000 to promote early education initiatives in Kenya. Speaking at the launch of the fund in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, British Deputy High Commissioner Paul Harvey said it was envisaged that the money would be spent on strengthening Kenya's capacity to ensure that the poorest and most marginalised children, especially girls, could enrol for quality primary education. He said the money would be spent on initiatives to enable civil society to design and implement education plans at national level, better monitoring of government spending on education, the acceleration of gender equality and transparency in the educational system, and "innovative ways" to ensure that vulnerable groups such as street children, orphans and nomadic children could access education. "We want primary school head teachers to be accountable to their school committee and to parents for the way they spend funds for textbooks," Harvey added. The fund would not be used for direct service provision such as the paying of school fees, Patricia Hari of Save the Children-UK told IRIN, but for advocacy purposes and long-term policy planning. Save the Children-UK, along with Action Aid and Oxfam, are to manage the fund. "With the existing resources available from the government, a lot more children could be reached," said Hari, adding that government expenditure plans would be looked at to maximise services available from within the current budget. "We also want to ensure the government allocates more to education, and to prioritise vulnerable groups." Harvey added that the fund was significant, because research showed overwhelmingly that educating girls was the single most effective investment in the development of poor countries. "Education saves lives, through greater awareness of risks to health," he added, "education opens doors out of poverty". Britain had given an initial donation of over US $15 million dollars to the BCEF - which aims to enhance educational opportunities in poorer Commonwealth countries - and had pledged to match contributions from businesses in the UK and from Sport Relief 2002/03 pound for pound, including tax relief, he said. Kenya is one of 17 member states that will benefit.