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Education in Kenya- The Thirst for Knowledge

1. Education in Kitui

Kitui has 606 primary schools, scattered over an area of 20,500 sq.km.  The teacher:pupil ratio is 30:1 in primary schools and 16:1 in secondary schools. There is a need to address accessibility and cultural issues to improve school enrolment and completion rates in the district.  The primary school going population aged 6-13 years was 129,913 in 1999 representing 27% of the total population and comprised of 65,542 males and 64,371 females. The total is expected to rise to 158,359 by the year 2008. The total primary enrolment in 1999 was 132972 with 47.6% for boys and a lower 48.1% for girls. Although there were 53,383 (26,992 boys and 26,391 girls) secondary-school going children aged 14-17 years in 1999, only 6,860 boys and 6,866 girls (about 25%) were enrolled in secondary schools. 

Thus, there is a very low transition from Primary to Secondary Schools. 

Empirical evidence shows that 13% of the urban poor have never attended school at all while the comparative rural figure is 29%. Of the poor, only 12% of those in rural areas have reached secondary education while for the urban poor the figure rises to 28%.

Education is not enough by itself to escape from poverty. Many well educated Kenyans remain poor on account of lack of access to opportunities. However without education, capacity for accessing opportunity is very much reduced.

Education is very important to the Kenyans. A major part of the typical household budget goes towards school fees and costs for school uniforms. Every day in Kitui you see hordes of children heading either towards school, or from school towards home, their brightly coloured uniforms contrasting with the reddish-brown dusty landscape.   Education is seen as a vital part of the struggle to overcome the enormous difficulties faced by the majority of people in Kitui. Not only can education offer the potential of securing a better type of employment, but it can also help open minds to tackle gender issues such as the role of women, womens’ property rights, and so forth.  
The restrictions on women’s access to, and control of,  property and resources are a major contributing factor to poverty in these Districts. The Diocese has a programme to improve women’s status, and hence access and control, by educating project groups on appropriate gender roles in community water development, and in other areas also. Schools are generally multi- denominational.  Even schools managed by Catholic religious, male or female, will often have less than 50% Catholic students. Primary education is free in Kenya: however private schools are very popular. School fees are generally in the region of Ks3500 to Ks4000 per term (€45 to €50), with boarding schools charging twice this amount. In times of hardship, such as now, parents have enormous difficulty in raising cash for fees and uniforms. 

As explained elsewhere, the importance of school fees and school uniforms is twofold. Firstly, if a child can get access to school, he/she is probably guaranteed  adequate feeding and nutrition for five days of the week- and the remaining family foodstocks can be divided among the other family members.  Secondly, school uniforms are often a prerequisite for entry to school- and once attending school, the uniform minimises  “difference” for children who 

might otherwise suffer discrimination or stigma due to the HIV/AIDS factor.  

Many Parishes run Polytechnics which teach skills such as carpentry to boys, and dressmaking or needlework to girls. Students in the Polytechnics may have either insufficient points from Primary school to proceed to secondary school level, or may be prevented from entering secondary for financial or other reasons.  

The provision of targeted funding from support groups in Ireland can achieve much with what are relatively modest amounts of money in Irish terms. For example, the Dalkey Outreach Group has provided a major part of the funding for the Polytechnic in Endau Parish for provision of sewing machines, a knitting machine, and sewing materials.  They have  also sponsored the fees of two students in the past year. Holy Redeemer parish in Bray, Co. Wicklow, has been twinned with Ikanga parish in Kitui, since the early 80s.  They send out about €15,000 per year, and when that money is not required for famine relief, the main priority is educating children in secondary schools.  
Some projects looking for assistance right now are:  
Endau Parish Polytechnic- As is commonplace in other Polytechnics we visited, practice dressmaking is done with paper materials as they cannot afford fabrics The quality of the work produced by the girls is very high, and provision of good-quality materials for classroom use would allow the option of selling the finished garments.
Mutomo Nursery and Primary School- Mutomo is in the southern, and very arid, part of the Kitui district. The Mutomo Mission Hospital, which was founded by the Irish Sisters of Mercy in 1962, is a major facility in Mutomo. The Parish of Mutomo constructed a Nursery School on parish lands adjacent to the Hospital in 2002. The school is run by the Sisters of St Joseph. There are three classes at the present time, with approximately 30 children in each class. When the new school year begins January 2007 next, they will require a new classroom for the new intake. This school began three years ago and added a classroom each year since. 

Mutomo Nursery School.jpg (20890 bytes)

Standard 2 at Mutomo greets a visitor from Friends of Kitui  
This school provides feeding for the students, and as a result the children are healthy and vigorous, and a joy to observe. A sum of approximately €5,000 would provide the new classroom. The ambition of the Parish is to extend the school to an 8-class, full primary school by adding a classroom per year for the next five years.  

Ikutha Polytechnic for Girls

This school has premises, but is very short of equipment. As in Endau, the Polytechnic provides second level vocational training for girls and offers them the opportunity to earn money as dressmakers or seamstresses. They currently have only four sewing machines for about 30 pupils, three for the second years and only one for the first year students. As is commonplace in other Polytechnics we visited, practice dressmaking is done with paper materials as they cannot afford fabrics.

 


For More Information Contact:

Friends of Kitui
Dalkey, Co. Dublin, Ireland
Tel: +353-1-285-0988
Internet: info@friendsofkitui.com

Send mail to editor@friendsofkitui.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: September 16, 2007