Kenyan Primary Education

Usalama Primary School - Form 6

A recent article in the Nairobi based newspaper, Daily Nation, the primary newspaper in Kenya, discusses the governments plans to hire 28,000 new teachers by 2012 to reduce shortages in schools. The majority of the new teachers, some 21,000, will be posted to primary schools while the remainder will be positioned at secondary schools.

Currently Kenya is experiencing a 50,000 teacher shortage the article states, saying that 36,000 of the 50 are needed in primary schools. The national student-teacher ratio stands at 44, but is worse in urban slum and rural arid and semi-arid areas.

A 2005 UNESCO assessment on Kenya's Free Primary Education programme listed the following as problems within the country's education system:

- only 25% of students studying at the grade appropriate to their age. most students are older than what is recommended by international education standards.
- there is a systemic shortage of teachers. student-teacher ratios are approximately 50:1.
- classroom spaces are often inadequate for learning environments, with low levels of light and overall congested conditions.
- there is little to none infrastructure for special needs children.
- 7.5% of students are re-entry cases, while 7.7% are repeating a grade.