Free Primary Education is Benefiting Children of the ‘Rich’ in Kenya’s Poor Urban Communities

By Rose Oronje

Even among the poorest of the poor in Kenya, it’s the better-off families that take their children to public primary schools where free primary education is offered.

This is one of the major and unexpected facts emerging from APHRC’s continuous research on schooling in two informal settlements (slums) and two formal settlements (relatively low-income) in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. This is unexpected because Kenya is implementing a free primary education policy primarily to ensure that the poorest of the poor are not locked out of school due to lack of school fees.

This finding is contained in a recently published paper in Equal Opportunities International journal authored by APHRC researchers, Drs. Moses Ngware, Moses Oketch, Alex Ezeh and Netsayi Mudege, and entitled, “Do Household Characteristics Matter in Schooling Decisions in Urban Kenya?” The paper used a cross sectional data set collected in 2005 from the two slum and two non-slum communities in Nairobi. The sample comprised 7475 primary school-aged children.

The study reveals that poor families that are more likely to have their children enrolled in primary school are those that are relatively ‘richer’, reside out of informal settlements, are headed by a woman, are small in size, live near a school, and the family head is more educated. Looking at the type of primary schools where poor families enroll their children, the study found that, families living outside informal settlements are more likely to send their children to public schools where free primary education is offered than families living in informal settlements. Indeed, 74% of families living in the relatively low-income formal settlements have their children enrolled in public primary schools compared to 52% of families living in the informal settlements. Even within the informal settlements, it’s the better-off families that are more likely to have their children in public schools. For instance, among the poorest slum families, only 54% have their children in public schools, whereas 61% of the richest slum families have their children in public schools. Thus more poorer families are enrolling their children in fee-charging non-public schools compared to relatively richer families.

The question that begs answers here is why do poorer families take their children to fee-charging and low quality informal schools? The study attributes this scenario to “flexibility of non-public schools, low social capital and networks, and perceived differences in the quality of education provided by different schools”. It is important to note that other APHRC research has shown that there are very few public schools within and near informal settlements; this means that children living in these settlements have very limited access to public primary education. Because of this fact, many non-public schools have emerged in slums to fill this gap. These schools however charge minimal fees and lack basic learning requirements – qualified teachers, equipment and facilities. Overcrowding in the few public schools in or near slums has been seen to lower the quality of learning in these schools, and as such, poor parents have opted for the non-public schools. 

While the free primary education is a supply-driven intervention, this paper provides evidence that can inform demand-driven policy and program interventions aimed at increasing the uptake of free primary education since it identifies distinct characteristics that can be used to identify target households. In addition, the findings point to key supply issues including the lower level of accessibility of public schools in informal settlements. The paper’s findings on the different enrolment patterns among poor communities and the types of school where children are enrolled provide important clues to what happens when there is free primary education in a situation of limited supply of public schools. It demonstrates that even if the intention of the government is to publicly provide education, equity cannot be attained if the demand for education exceeds supply. The paper concludes that “… it appears that the poorest of the poor are not adequately served by the free primary education policy and that equity remains elusive even when education is said to be free”. 

Source:
Ngware, M., M. Oketch, A. Ezeh, N. Mudege (2009). “Do Household Characteristics Matter in Schooling Decisions in Urban Kenya?” Equal Opportunities International, 28(7):591-608.

 

 

Tags: Free Primary Education; Education;

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