Challenges of Primary Education in Developing Countries

Insights from Kenya

Paul P.W. Achola, Vijayan K. Pillai

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781351952811
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Elementary Education

Paul P.W. Achola and Vijayan K. Pillai address factors associated with wastage in primary school education and the solutions to ameliorate low participation in primary education. The book provides an examination of the factors associated with wastage, exploring the interconnectedness of non-enrollment, repetition and dropout. The authors demonstrate that reducing poverty through empowerment programs and citizen participation in school decisions are critical to improving primary school participation.

1 Introduction

Perhaps one of the most pressing social and political problems facing the educational system in the developing world today is a high attrition rate among primary school goers. The terms wastage has been used to label a number of broadly related problems associated with high attrition or dropout rates. Why, it may be asked, should anyone bother about failure by some citizens of a country (which wastage implies) to receive full primary education or its equivalent? Does attending primary school or failure to do so make any difference in the lives of those involved and in the communities in which they belong? Should one not focus research on higher education, such as secondary and university levels, which ostensibly better prepare their recipients for skills training or direct participation in both the labor market and community life? Penetrating as these questions may be, they are to an extent based on a wrong premise, namely an ideological view that places a strong premium on the economic benefits of schooling.

The singular obsession with education as an economic concept has led to disastrous consequences ranging from frustrations and disillusionment by the 'educated unemployed' and their sponsors (usually parents) with the costs of schooling. Lack of immediate economic gain from schooling has also lead to the devaluation of schooling by a skeptical public including school-age youth in many new states. A recasting of perspectives on the place of schooling, particularly the primary school cycle, is desirable and urgent. The position taken here is not to deny the economic benefits that schooling only confers on individuals, but rather to map these within the context of broader 'benefits to schooling'. In our view, the need for a study on primary school education is all the more pressing when the content of discourse is 'wastage' in primary education.

The Centrality of Primary Schooling

One may take as a point of departure the fact that in the contemporary world many communities rely on schooling as the major provider of education. There are, of course, communities which do not actively engage in schooling and as a result depend largely on the family to promote education among their members. It is a fact, however, that such communities are few, isolated and endangered; they are not important social actors in the communal life of their nation states.

As a matter of fact, the United Nations isolated education as a key factor in the new social order that emerged after World War II and made efforts to correct the marginalization of groups on account of lack of access to basic education. In 1948 nation states through the General Assembly of the newly established United Nations, authored the document now widely known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 26 of this document is directly relevant to the discussion here since it states that participation in schooling is a fundamental right:

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

At first it was not clear why the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights regarded education (read schooling) to be so important that everyone should receive it. A little over a decade later, plenty of insight on this issue was provided by a complementary Declaration of the Rights of the Child proclaimed by the same General Assembly of the United Nations in 1959. In reference to education, Principle 7 of the Declaration on the Rights of the Child urged that:

The child is entitled to receive education, which shall be free and compulsory, at least in the elementary stages. He/she shall be given an education which will promote his/her general culture and enable him/her, on a basis of equal opportunity, to develop his/her abilities, individual judgment, and sense of moral and social responsibility, and to become a useful member of society. The best interests of the child shall be the guiding principle of those responsible for his/her education and guidance.

As is apparent from the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, not only did 'free' nations of the world following World War II re-emphasize the imperatives of education at the elementary or fundamental stage, but also provided a rationale, however vague. Education was regarded as necessary because it molds the learners into rational thinkers and promotes change agents within their social milieu. Given these perceived benefits, communities were expected to regard education at the basic, elementary level as a public good for which they were to be fully responsible. The pledge was to make such education free and compulsory. But whether or not those who manage the education enterprise are often guided by the best interests of the child is a contentious issue.

What case do we ourselves make for emphasis on widening access to primary school education? Three broad arguments are particularly relevant in this regard. First, primary education is a foundation for later learning, whether that learning is formal or informal. The type of curricula and pedagogic approaches learners are exposed to at the foundation primary school level does influence their capacities for later learning. In addition, they also influence the intensity of intellectual curiosity, reading habits and dexterity with calculation tasks. Stated in summary form, experience with schooling during the foundation years at the primary level can enhance an individual's capacity for learning.

The second factor in favor of focus on primary school education is its linkage to literacy. Literacy, defined as the ability of an individual to at least read and write simple sentences in any one language, is better promoted for large sections of a citizenry through attendance of primary school education. A major emphasis of the primary school curriculum in virtually all countries of the world is to impart the skills of reading and writing. The importance of literacy is rooted in research findings, which show that primary schooling does instill information rendering pupils well informed. Furthermore, it reduces xenophobia, improves self-confidence, enhances productivity and promotes health seeking behavior thus increasing life expectancy for both the individual and dependents. The fact that the provision of primary school education and literacy go hand in hand is now widely recognized.

It can be easily argued that easy access to primary education is a wiser and less costly option in the long-term. Alternative literacy promotion programs tend on the whole to be expensive. These include literacy training for adults, functional literacy (literacy incorporated within a development project), and literacy campaigns. The unit cost of effective alternative literacy programs is generally higher than that associated with primary schooling and the outcomes tend to be more short-lived. All this leads to the conclusion that a more prudent national education policy is that which encourages widespread participation in primary schooling in the hope that corrective measures which need to be undertaken to foster literacy for those who missed out on schooling will be few and inexpensive. Nonetheless, we recognize that in the short-term many countries, especially the new states must continue to rely on these costly alternatives in their efforts to promote literacy.

The final point we make in support of primary schooling is evidence regarding rates of return to different levels of education. There is consistent and ample evidence that purely in economic terms, investment in primary education yields higher rates of return, both private and social, than investment in secondary and tertiary education. Because the measurement of rates of return include parameters which are essentially monetary, the fact that one level of education may have a higher rate of return than another level should not be taken to mean an underlying superiority in terms of benefits. Unfortunately, many economists of education have used evidence about the higher rates of return to primary schooling to advocate for the transfer of resources from secondary and tertiary education to the primary level for new states. It is not our intention to detail the various aspects of this debate, but our position is that an increase in the number of the graduates of secondary and, especially, tertiary education can contribute toward a critical mass necessary for technological adaptation and innovation. It is on these graduates that the new states must rely for technological survival and national leadership and not the graduates of primary education whose cognitive and leadership skills are at best rudimentary. In this sense, concerted efforts must be made by the new states to promote all levels of education if dependence on foreign, mainly American and European, technical personnel is to be considerably scaled down in the medium and long-term.

In view of our perspective as stated above, our concern with wastage should be seen as an attempt to focus on a level that is the 'substructure' of education in any contemporary society. The quality of the curriculum and student experiences at this basic level have a strong bearing on learning outcomes at the secondary and tertiary levels. In this respect, it is relevant to provide an account of the aims of primary education as well as its duration in Kenya as these tend to influence student's access, retention and success at this level of the schooling process (Eshiwani, 1984; Eshiwani et al., 1988). Although particular reference is made to Kenya, many of the issues covered in this book apply quite well to many other African countries.

Evolution of Primary Education in the Kenyan Setting

Apart from Islamic koranic schools at the Kenyan coast, which accompanied the arrival of Arab traders in the 14th century, formal education in Kenya was established more elaborately by Christian missionaries at the start of the 20th century. The work of establishing mission schools started at the coast in 1846 when two German missionaries, Johann Krapf and Johann Rabman opened a school at Rabbi near Mombassa. It was, however, the completion of the Kenya-Uganda railway in the early 1900s that gave impetus to the opening up of more schools. The railway line from Mombassa on the Indian Ocean coast and Port Florence (now Kisume) on Lake Victoria in West Kenya was completed in 1901 and the line to Kampala from Nakuru a few years later.

The building of the railway which opened up Kenya's hinterland and the Anglo-German agreement of 1890, gave rise to three factors that influenced the development of education from the very beginning. First, it made the Kenyan inlands accessible to a large settler white community. Second, the large Indian labor force that assisted in the construction of the railway was encouraged by the British colonial government to settle in the country. Third, many Africans whose land had been alienated and others mainly through the use of coercive labor laws and practices, were uprooted from their normal settings and appended to the colonial white settler economy.

In effect, three distinct racial communities were compelled by the modus operandi of the colonial economy to interact with one another. This scenario gave rise to a 'racial question' spearheaded by the hegemonic European settler community. Around 1907, organized interests on behalf of this community used the newly established Legislative Council to commit the government to a policy of separate development for the three races namely Europeans, Asians and Africans. In the education sphere, this policy was succinctly formulated in Professor Frazier's report of 1909 which endorsed the principle of different systems of education for the three racial groups with Africans earmarked to receive technical education (Hughes, 1979). The missionaries were encouraged to implement this policy through a program of grants in aid for 'industrial' education, the level of the grant being pegged to the level of effort (more easily measured in terms of enrolment).

A turning point in the provision of education under colonialism in Kenya came in 1911 with the establishment of a Department of Education. The launching of this department marked the start of more extensive government-missionary cooperation in education on the one hand and the government's direct initiatives in the provision of education on the other hand. Mission schools obtained increased subsidies for education from the government so that about sixty or so mission schools in operation around 1912 were able over the next few years to increase their enrolment of African pupils (Soja, 1968; Thias and Carnoy, 1972). Meanwhile the Department of Education started to open up schools of its own in earnest. Schools for European and Indian children were opened up in all the major towns and areas of settlement namely Nairobi, Mombassa, Kisumi, Eldoret and Nakuru. The Arabs also had schools opened for their children in Mombassa in 1912 and in Malindi in 1919 (Thias and Carnoy, 1972). These early direct government provision of schools bypassed African children.

The years following the end of World War I were characterized by agitation from African leaders for better educational opportunities for African children. Agitations led by Kenyan African World War I veterans succeeded in opening the doors of opportunity for education to African children. This education facilitated the acquisition of white-collar jobs. As a result of these experiences and perceptions, Africans called for greater expansion in enrolment at the primary school level and opening up of the secondary school level for African children.

The colonial government responded by setting up an Education Commission in 1919 with the mandate to look into the unsatisfactory status of education for all races in the protectorate. The commission made a vague recommendation to the effect that while the provision of education would remain a major responsibility of the missionaries, the government should increase its role in the provision of education. The Education Commission of the Phelps-Stokes Fund of 1924 addressed African concerns about education more directly by calling for quantitative expansion and qualitative improvement of African education in the colony. One objective of this qualitative improvement was to give Africans academic type of education similar to that available to Euro and Asian children.

The government's reaction was again characteristically gradualist and piecemeal. It stuck to its philosophy and policy of separate education curricula for the three races but sought to placate African concerns by establishing in 1925, a permanent Advisory Committee on Education with a network of area school committees on which Local Native Councils (LNCs), the main administrative organs for Africans, were represented. These LNCs collected funds from Africans to be spent on establishing schools outside missionary control. The following year (1926) the government's response to the call for an academic curriculum for African children took the form of examination and certification for African pupils who had completed primary schooling. The government also established the Alliance High School and added three others before the outbreak of World War II in 1939 as a partial measure to meet African demands for secondary education (Thias and Carnoy, 1972).

It is significant to note that each of the four secondary schools established during this interim period was to largely serve one of the four major African ethnic groups namely Kikenyu, Luc, Luhya and Kamba. The regional and ethnic basis of education that had been laid by the participation of LNCs in the provision of primary school education was now extended to the secondary level; the legacy of this ethnic nature of educational opportunities was subsequently to be a lingering feature of Kenyan education.

Although reliable enrolment data are not available it appears that the enrolment of girls in both primary and secondary schools lagged far below that of boys from the very beginning. This partly was a logical consequence of colonial political ideology, which was both statist and patriarchal. It is for example instructive that out of some 300 pupils enrolled in government sponsored secondary schools in 1945; only 2 (two) were girls (Thias and Carnoy, 1972).

The onset of World War II, the war itself and the years immediately following the end of the war, marked a turning point in the development of education in Kenya and in colonial Africa generally. The war exposed African servicemen who had participated in it to other cultures and new technologies. Soon after the war, India, in 1947 and Pakistan in 1948 became independent states from British rule. These two events reinforced the demand for independence in European colonies in Africa. Soon it became apparent that colonies had to be prepared for self-government. These pressures dovetailed into the beginning of 'mass education' at the primary school level in Kenya. Since this book focuses primarily on issues of universalized access to basic (primary) education, key timings of benchmark events in the evolution of mass education in Kenya need highlighting if we are to provide an effective description of the subject. These benchmarks include government commissioned development plans and multi-state international conferences often sponsored by one or more of the United Nations agencies.

Benchmarks in the Move Towards Mass Education in Kenya 1963-1970

So far, the evidence we have presented is one of great reluctance on the part of colonial authorities to widen educational opportunities, at all levels, for children of African Kenyan decent. Nonetheless, more opportunities gradually become available as a result of pressure on the colonial agents from African leaders before independence in 1963, and from African masses and international pressure groups on African leaders after independence.

Persistent action in favor of greater opportunities in (primary) education by African leaders following the end of World War II culminated in the 1948 Ten Year Plan for Education in which the colonial functionaries aimed to provide 50% of school-going age children with education lasting six years. The Ten Year Plan for Education found further official sanction in the Beecher Education Commission of 1949, which went beyond the Ten Year Plan in making the following three recommendations (Stabler, 1969).

a) That primary school educational facilities are provided in areas of Kenya in which such facilities were lacking;

b) That attention is paid not only to quantitative expansion of primary education, but to its qualitative improvement as well;

c) That in view of some negative aspects of the industrial-and agricultural-oriented curriculum for African children, these be improved and that about 5% of the African pupils who completed primary school continue with secondary education.

Presumably in order to improve the quality of the graduates, the duration of the primary school cycle for African pupils was altered in 1952. Before this date, the system consisted of six years of primary schooling (standards/grades 1 to 6), two years of junior secondary (Forms I and II), and four years of senior secondary (Forms 3 to 6). This was altered in 1952 to three levels, namely, four years of primary school (standards/grades 1 to 4), four years of intermediate school (standards/grades 5 to 8) and four years of secondary school (Forms 1 to 4 or grades 9 to 12). The first eight years, consisting of primary and intermediate phases, constituted the full primary school cycle; and although the secondary school component had four years, students had the option to leave after appearing for the Kenya African Secondary Examination (KASE) given at the end of the second year in Form 2. The new structuring of the school cycle did not alter its 12 year duration. Furthermore, the implementation of the new educational program remained the responsibility of LNCs which used District Education Boards (DEBs) as the administrative vehicle for the management of primary schools. Since ANCs differed markedly in their resource base, their use in the management and financing of education resulted in glaring inequalities in the provision of and access to education. Thus, although the educational reforms of 1952 led to increase in enrolment at the primary school level, there were considerable regional inequalities in enrolments.

At the same time, the rapid expansion of primary education for African pupils both before and after the Beecher Commission resulted in a fall in standards partly because of many poorly educated and trained teachers who run the system. Inspection of these teachers was equally inadequate as were learning facilities and materials. As a result performance in key examinations, such...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figure
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Research on Wastage in Kenya
• 3 Primary School Wastage Among Special Groups
• 4 A Design for Investigating Wastage
• 5 Extent and Perceived Causes of Wastage
• 6 Identified Solutions for Each Component of Wastage
• 7 Profiles of Selected Initiatives to Reduce Wastage
• 8 Impact of Selected Initiatives on Wastage
• 9 Wastage in Developing Countries: Insights from Kenya
• References
• Index