NGO expresses concern at poor school enrolment

Only 5.8 million of an estimated nine million children of school age in Kenya were attending school, with the remainder unable to secure access, according to a report by the NGO Elimu Yetu Coalition (EYC), cited by the ‘Saturday Nation’ newspaper of 28 July. The organisation attributed declining enrolment to ineffective management of schools and an inbuilt bias against marginalised groups and the poor, the report stated. Deteriorating quality of education available in public schools was also pushing more and more parents to send their children to private schools, thus undermining the political will to improve public education, according to an EYC report presented to a workshop of 40 educational NGOs at a workshop in Embu. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS among parents, teachers and children had also contributed to a decline in those attending school, the NGO stated. Among the other problems it cited were: Underfunding, deepening poverty, rampant drug abuse, stagnant economic growth and insecurity.

Kenya had a combined primary, secondary and third-level education enrolment rate of 51 percent in 1999, according to the 2001 ‘Human Development Report’ recently published by the UNDP. Government spending on public education expenditure declined from 7.1 percent to 6.5 percent of Gross National Product between 1985-‘87 and 1995-‘97, it stated.