Kenya Educational Background
Kenya has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa, and its educational system is testament to a focus on improving the lives of the nation’s youth. Recently, Kenya has abolished school fees for all primary school students. Kenya is run on an 8-4-4 system, which means 8 years of primary school, 4 years of secondary school, and 4 years of university. There is currently a push in the country to abolish fees for secondary school as well. The abolition of school fees for primary school in Kenya has led to an explosion in the number of enrolled students in the system, and has also led to overcrowding and a severe shortage of teachers in the public school system. Kenyans value education highly, and thus, there are many private schools for them to choose from which offer less crowding and better learning conditions. There are also 30 universities in Kenya at the current time, though many choose to go abroad for higher education, with the United States one of the largest recipients of Kenyan students. An interesting personal note; when I first arrived in Kenya and was talking to the director of education in Lukenya, who oversaw the four separate schools in the rural campus, she said with pride that Kenya exported many teachers to other countries in the region, which I also heard from others in Kenya and Tanzania. It is interesting to go back and find that there is a severe shortage of teachers in the country at this time when they are sending so much valuable labor to other countries. Though plagued by the corruption of many governments in the region, Kenya is also home to a very open press, and thus, its people are cognizant of many of their government’s shortcomings, including in the area of education, a strong reason behind the granting of free universal primary schooling by President Kibaki before the last election cycle in Kenya.
