Research proposal sample
Universal secondary school education in Kenya
Geographical profile of Kenya
The Republic of Kenya, is a country in Africa and a founding member of the East African Community (EAC). Its capital and largest city is Nairobi. Kenya’s territory lies on the equator and overlies the East African Rift covering a diverse and expansive terrain that extends roughly from Lake Victoria to Lake Turkana (formerly called Lake Rudolf) and further south-east to the Indian Ocean. It is bordered by Tanzania to the south and southwest, Uganda to the west, South Sudan to the north-west, Ethiopia to the north and Somalia to the north-east. Kenya covers 581,309 km2 (224,445 sq mi), and had a population of approximately 48 million people in January 2017.
Since independence the Kenya Government has made various efforts to provide free Education.
In 2003, Kenya introduced the Free Primary Education (FPE) program with a view to meeting the goal of Universal Primary Education (UPE). Having fairly successfully implemented this policy, the government has now turned ton widening access to and improving the quality of secondary education. However, the country faces constraints in mobilizing additional public and private resources to meet the high cost of expanding access to quality primary education (KIPPRA, 2006).
Enrollment
In 2007, there were 1.2 million children in Kenya’s secondary school system. Some 400,000 students entered secondary school in 2008, about 60 percent of those who sat the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education. This number was expected to rise by 200,000 in 2008 with the introduction of subsidies to cover tuition and certain related costs (Daily Nation Feb. 23rd , 2008).
At least 4,000 new classrooms, the equivalent of 250 schools, were needed to accommodate the 1.4 million pupils expected in public secondary schools during 2008. Kenya currently has 4,478 public high schools, many of which are in a state of disrepair and lack essential facilities (Daily Nation Feb 23, 2008).
Kenya‘s National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) Government acknowledges that growth in secondary education is constrained and is likely to remain poor due to lack of adequate secondary schools to match primary enrollment rates. For example, in 2003 there were
3,661 public secondary schools and 641 registered private schools against 18,081 public primary schools. This problem is not new as it is a situation that the Kenyan society has been experiencing since the 1960s. The situation arose due to the rapid growth in Kenya‘s primary school enrollment and was expected to worsen following implementation of FPE in 2003 (this is the case especially for urban slum dwellers where 60 per cent of Kenya‘s urban population resides).
Previous responses included the introduction of Harambee schools, especially in rural areas. It is not clear whether the current policies outlined by the government and which are presented below will adequately respond to urban demand for secondary education in a similar fashion as the Harambee schools did for the rural communities in the 1970s. Moreover, secondary.
GERs declined from 29.4 percent in 1990 to 22.2 per cent in 2000 and the Government is already concerned that a further decline will undermine any efforts towards EFA targets (Republic of Kenya, 2005). In an effort to deal with the race for the demand for secondary education following the success of FPE, the following policies are outlined by the government in Sessional Paper No. 1 of 2005 on education (Republic of Kenya, 2005).
Pupil teacher ration
In 2008, the average teacher-pupil ratio in Kenya’s secondary schools already stood at one to 45. “With larger class enrolment our workload is more. This makes our members do more. The government should either employ more teachers or compensate our members for taking more lessons,” Waweru of the Kenya Union of Post -Primary Education Teachers said in an interview with International Press Service (2009).
Financial obligations to the government
The implementation of FSE was in the form of releasing funds to sponsor all enrolled students. For a start, the government announced the release of Sh2.9 billion to get the programme going. Out of this, each student was to be allocated Sh10,265 a year to cover for tuition and administrative costs. Although still at its infant stages the FSE programme has already experienced challenges in the implementation. First and foremost, the allocation of KSh10,265
for every child was reported to be inadequate (Daily Nation, 23rd February 2008). Parents in some schools were asked to be ready to pay additional costs thus undermining the concept of free education.
Uganda
Formal education in Uganda comprises three basic levels. The primary level consists of seven grades (or standards) referred to as P1-P7 (where P stands for Primary). Children are supposed to start primary school when they are six years old. Successful completion entails an end of cycle examination, the PLE (or Primary School Leaving Examination). Pupils who have successfully completed primary school have two basic options at the secondary level namely general secondary, and vocational and technical education. General secondary education has two levels: the O-level and the A-level (where O stands for ordinary and A stands for advanced). The O-level or lower secondary takes 4 years and the corresponding grades are S1-S4 (S stands for senior[1]). At the end of this cycle, students sit for the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE). Only UCE holders are eligible for upper secondary education at the A-level which covers forms S5-S6. At the end of this second cycle, students sit for the Uganda Advance Certificate of Education (UACE). The performance in this examination determines eligibility for university education. Both the UCE and the UACE are national examinations designed for certification and selection (Liang 2002). Total enrolment in primary school in 2007 was estimated at more than 7 million, (exactly 7,414,880) pupils (MoES 2007). For the same year, enrolment in the secondary education was estimated at 842, 683 students.
Low-quality education is an endemic problem in most developing countries.International tests of student achievement consistently show that developing countries score at the bottom of the performance scale. In many countries, raising education quality has replaced expanding coverage as the principal challenge facing education ministries, (Naidoo, 2002).
The willingness of communities to contribute in cash and kind is a traditional strength of education in Africa. The missionary-founded schools were built on various Western models of education. Amajority of these schools had coherent structures and strong religious traditions. The missionaries supplied human resources, adopted curriculum and provided textbooks and equipment. It is after one of the traditional kingdoms, the Kingdom of Buganda became aBritish Protectorate that all schools became the domain of the British Empire, with English as the official language of instruction, (Odaet,1990). But the colonial government did not yet involve itself in establishing, financing and administering schools.
Enrollment in USE
Uganda’s education system of schooling follows a system where between the ages of 6-12 years, a child attends primary school for 7 years culminating in the primary leaving education certificate national exam. It is this level that has been targeted for free and compulsory schooling under the (Universal Primary Education) UPE programme by the Ugandan Government. After primary school are O-levels, comprised of four years of secondary schooling for pupils between the ages 13-16years old progressively senior one to four. After this level one can opt for A-levels of 2 more years of secondary schooling and then another four years of university or college schooling depending on ability and interest. Alternatively, there are tertiary colleges where one can also enrol in (Syngellakis et al. 2006).
While there are plan to universalise secondary schooling in Uganda, the current situation is that the project is at a pilot stage. The Ugandan Ministry of Education gives a recognizable support to the education of the girl child. According to the reports of a policy review newsletter from the Education department, the government from the 1990s, for example, implemented the Universal Primary Education (UPE). Following the implementation of UPE, 87% of children between ages of 6-12 were enrolled in primary school. Out of this 86.9% were girls. The government of Uganda further implemented the USE scheme in 2007 as a boost to the UPE scheme implemented in 1997.
Under the USE scheme children who would have successfully completed the primary level are admitted and do not need to meet the tuition fees like their counterparts enrolled in non USE schools but are supposed to meet the non tuition costs like books, school uniforms, other scholastic materials. This implies that children, who could have hitherto dropped out of school due to inability to pay the user fees, will be enrolled and retained. This came as a result of having realized that tuition was one of the major obstacles to enrolment and retention in secondary education for girls. According to an Education Sector Performance Report, there has been remarkable increase in enrolment of students, including girls, into secondary education in USE’s first year of implementation; most schools under the USE programme have doubled enrolment rates even though with financial constraints, it is yet too early to tell how sustainable this project will be (Alowo 2007).
USE inception was a government initiative to fulfil its commitment to the Dakar Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) aimed at having both girls and boys’ parity in enrolment at the primary and secondary levels by 2005 and gender equality at all levels of education by 2015. According to MoES Sector Performance Report 2006, Uganda Educational Statistics Abstract 2006 and 2007 and A Report on the USE Head Count 2008 there has been remarkable increase in enrolment of students, including girls, into secondary education.
[1] Some documents translate this “S” as secondary.
