Covid-19 and Inequalities in Primary and Secondary Education in Africa: The Case Of Kenya.
Winnie Kishara and Njoki Ngunyi
Op-Ed Series – Vol.2 Issue: 5
In Summary
COVID-19 underscores the desperate need to rethink the delivery of learning in Kenya, and Africa broadly with questions arising as to whether the current education system meets the needs and aspirations of citizens.
Digital learning has largely been utilized in several private schools to cater for primary and secondary school learners. However, those in state schools and generally from the lower social class continue to miss-out on learning.
The reality of a tiered education system in the context of COVID-19 reinforces the prevalence of ‘analogue’ education and the digital gaps in learning in state schools in Kenya and most African countries.
It is not all doom and gloom; the current reality is also laced with opportunities. It could and should be a trigger for a genuine national reflection and conversation on human capital development in Kenya.
One unmissable impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya and in most African countries is the reality of a tiered-primary and secondary education system. As most national governments closed all schools, all forms of formal learning for pupils in public schools halted. However, pupils from privileged backgrounds, attending private schools and actually following the so-called international curriculum, were able to resume learning through online platforms. This reality reproduces and exacerbates inequalities in society, as much as signpost faulty foundations of current development models in Africa.
COVID-19 underscores the desperate need to rethink the delivery of learning in Kenya, and Africa broadly with questions arising as to whether the current education system meets the needs and aspirations of citizens. In most African countries, the right to free education is enshrined in national constitutions and development plans; in Kenya, Article 53 (1) (b) of the Constitution states that every child has a right to free and compulsory basic education. Like many other education systems in Africa, however, Kenya’s education system is characterised by gross inequalities in access, funding, facilities and overall quality.
While these inequalities have been widely known, their true breadth and alarming depth have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Government response strategies, especially lockdowns, have more or less halted formal primary and secondary education as part of measures to protect pupils and contain the spread of COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic reveals the ‘mis-prioritisation’ prevalent in several African countries; the emphasis on white elephant infrastructural projects at the expense of human capital development. Expectedly, without the requisite investment in primary and secondary education, Africa faces major socio-economic, and political-security challenges in the present and decades to come in view of its ‘youthen-ing’ demography. In Kenya, factors such as poverty, food shortages, corruption, under-investment and political manipulation create and exacerbate inequality in the primary and secondary education sector.
In Kenya, and elsewhere in Africa, one’s social status often determines the quality of education you receive. Usually, those of the upper social class tend to send their children to private schools that are deemed to have far superior resources compared to the public schools that are often characterized by inadequate funding, poorly (un)paid/underpaid teachers, and decaying infrastructure. Curiously, analysts and commentators point to the fact that education was not part of President Uhuru’s Big Four Agenda; rather the agenda encompassed food security, housing, health and manufacturing. As highlighted by other anecdotal examples (including those below), it may be that the President does not see education as one of the key pillars for development.
In 2013, the Kenyan Government launched a Digital Literacy Project anticipating that approximately 23,951 public primary schools in Kenya would receive a total of 1.2 million learner digital devices. This project was later abandoned as the government shifted its focus to the building of computer labs for 25,000 public primary schools countrywide. If the measures the government proposed then had been effectively implemented, they might have mitigated the effects of the current pandemic thus ensuring the continuance of e-learning in every institution. Instead, citizens and civil society groups point to the unpreparedness of the government to handle learning outside classrooms.
In an attempt to bolster primary and secondary education in Kenya and without well-structured, strategic support from the state, publishers and tech firms have created platforms to allow students to learn remotely. However, for most people, the greatest concern remains the access to electricity, internet and electronic gadgets including smartphones and laptops. Although according to 2019 reports by the Kenya Communication Authority, internet penetration stands at 90%, internet affordability remains a huge hurdle Kenya still needs to cross to ensure access to digital learning.
The Ministry of Education in conjunction with Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) has developed educational programmes through the EDU Channel where it delivers radio-broadcasts for ECDE, primary and secondary school level learners. The broadcasts which began on 23rd March 2020 were launched after Kenya confirmed the first coronavirus case. These programmes are accessible across the country from 9.10am to 4.50pm. While this is a good initiative, it lacks mechanisms to assess learning and offers no possible means to establish the progress of learners. This method is also not tailored to meet the different learning styles and therefore relying solely on the radio programs may not cater for all the learners.
The COVID-19 crisis confirms and reinforces long-held suspicions by scholars and analysts that the Kenyan state was either unable or unwilling to meet the education needs of its citizens. Agreeably, the safety of pupils is paramount in the context of a pandemic, however, the underlying inequalities in primary and secondary education geometrically widens the educational divide between the rich and the poor. While most students are now home and academic learning generally on a pause, there are those in private learning institutions that are privileged enough to continue with their classes online. Digital learning through platforms such as Google Classroom, WhatsApp, YouTube and Zoom, have largely been utilized in several private schools to cater for primary and secondary school learners, however, those in state schools and generally from the lower social class continue to miss-out on learning.
Worse still, the learning experiences of pupils in private and state schools during COVID-19 also tell a story of the underlying pedagogies; the difference in the learning approaches and philosophies. The former experience a learner-centred education, anchored on technology and international competitiveness; and the latter experience a teacher-centred education that resist or is unable to leverage technology. The reality of a tiered education system in the context of COVID-19 reinforces the prevalence of ‘analogue’ education, as well as the digital gaps in learning in state schools in Kenya and most African countries. With globalisation and the reality of a tech-driven (digital) education, the traditional model of classroom-based, physical learning (analogue education) wane in value and application. Perhaps COVID-19 represents a message from the future; digital learning and virtual education are the new norm.
COVID-19 also brings to light the geographical disparities and inequalities between the more affluent counties such as Nairobi, Kiambu and Mombasa who have a higher percentage of learners who are able to access online learning. A majority of Kenyans believe that schools in Nairobi County offer the best education in comparison to other counties. The poorer counties such as Isiolo, Samburu and Lamu, have poor infrastructure, including the lack of computer devices and smartphones and 3G internet access.
All this comes amidst uncertainties about the planned Kenya National Examinations for primary and secondary school levels. It is feared by many stakeholder groups that this will be postponed (if the pandemic is not soon contained), and that learning in itself will be suspended to the coming year (2021) (for the sake of students who will not be fully prepared to sit these crucial examinations that have a bearing on their lives). However, this will mean that learners may have to repeat the entire academic year 2020.
This sad reality hardly escapes the attention of public analysts and commentators in Kenya and has dominated debates in the public sphere in recent weeks. Some of the solutions proposed by the public include the abolishment of internet charges completely at this time and /or free internet access to education resources for primary and secondary school pupils. Without this access, learning is impossible for most pupils of state schools. Poor households already face multiple whammies in the COVID-19 period due to lost livelihoods, depleted savings and assets, and major daily struggles to feed. Therefore, despite the subsidies on internet bundles, it is relatively a luxury in the context of COVID-19 enforced lockdown.
The agencies of the pupils (and their families) in state schools in hardly lost; they continue to experiment with other alternatives, including home schooling. This is ever plausible as experiences in the Global North confirm, nonetheless its possibility and effectiveness vary considerably in Kenya and Arica; it is no option for pupils from homes where parents and other siblings lack formal education themselves. Also, some homes may be unsuitable environments for home schooling; pupils from over-populated, noisy, and poorly ventilated urban areas (slums) are at a disadvantage. Apart from disrupted learning, pupils from such neighbourhoods face additional risks of COVID-19 infections; social distancing is impossible in such locations.
It is not all doom and gloom; the current reality is also laced with opportunities. It could and should be a trigger for a genuine national reflection and conversation on human capital development in Kenya. Such discussion will have to engage with critical questions such as; What kind of education system responds to the needs of the current and future pupils? Should education in Kenya be a national development priority? Should education transcend literacy to include a nation-building project in Kenya? What is the role of primary and secondary education in envisioning a new Kenya, a change-oriented future citizenry? What is required to transform the quality of learning in state schools in Kenya? If the answers to these questions are found and effectively implemented, Kenya will have an education system which is inclusive and capable of meeting the needs and aspirations of present and future generations.
Winnie Kishara is a Visiting Research Fellow at the African Leadership Centre (ALC) in Nairobi.
Email: winnie.kishara@africanleadershipcentre.org
Njoki Ngunyi is a Communication and Multimedia Assistant at the African Leadership Centre (ALC) in Nairobi.
