NN39, October 2007
Best Practice in Education and Training: Hype or Hope?
Is Free Primary Education Really Best Practice In Achieving UPE? Critical Views From Kenyan Schools
By Nobuhide Sawamura, Centre for the Study of International Cooperation in Education (CICE), Hiroshima University
KeywordsKenya, UPE, Free primary education, Best practice
Summary
Taking Kenya as a case study, this piece examines whether free primary education really is best practice in achieving universal primary education.
The second goal of the Dakar Framework for Action clearly states that ?by 2015 all children, particularly girl children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality.? Abolishing fees is being implemented across many African countries. But can free primary education (FPE) go in tandem with good quality in these countries where there is always a budgetary constraint? It is difficult for such countries to implement challenge of universal primary education (UPE) using only their own resources. Is this implicitly encouraging them to be more aid-dependent? We used to discuss the importance of ownership in recipient countries and their self-help efforts in the 1990s when the aid budget was shrinking. Nowadays, almost no one expresses misgivings about becoming aid-dependent.
Kenya has targeted the achievement of UPE as a national development goal and reintroduced FPE in 2003 as soon as the new President Kibaki arrived. It instantly and dramatically increased the number of children attending school by 18%. Apparently FPE had a great impact on enrolments. Improvement in enrolment ratios tends to become the sole target, leaving the quality behind. The rapidly growing number of children attending school necessitates an increase in the number of pupils per teacher or per class. In the situation where the quality of primary education must surely be enhanced, the government has recently announced that they would implement free secondary education from 2008. This is a policy message that says that the spread of secondary education enjoys priority over the qualitative improvement in primary education.
There are some problems that have arisen in terms of FPE in many schools. For example, some parents have come to believe that the government takes full responsibility for education and they have become apathetic to all school activities; which makes effective school management difficult. Grants from the government are not distributed in the new school term when schools need funds, nor is the amount sufficient. Free education does not always function as well in practice as policy makers expected.
Shortly after FPE was introduced, the government strictly prohibited all schools from collecting levies or taking any money from parents. Nowadays, however, schools tend to collect some money as fees for remedial classes, facility maintenance, and so on. Good performing schools in terms of examination results in Nairobi tend to charge prohibitive fees though they are public. Boarding schools in the provincial cities are other places where the quality of education is relatively high. However, even if tuition fees are free, payments of boarding fees and some other expenses are compulsory. Poor children are naturally excluded and cannot receive quality education.
Although the current situation seems equal in terms of access to educational opportunities, comparison of the quality of available education reveals that not all children are guaranteed the same standard of education. Poor children can receive only poor education. Then, how much benefit will each child get from such education? For whose benefit is UPE? Kenyans actually say that UPE stands for Universal Poor Education!
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