Gender Disparities In The Secondary Education System Of Kenya: Challenges Faced By The Nation In Achieving The Objectives Of The Education For All Movement
The Education System in Kenya
Education is an enlightening experience whereby the systematic instructions are given at the teaching place. Through the use of techniques like training, teaching, directed research, storytelling and discussions, the individuals are taught about different things, which help in their overall development (Moss, 2011). An education person is not only able to grow themselves, but is also able to reciprocate the growth in others, and this is particularly true in context of women. It has documented the evidence regarding the female education being amongst the most significant forces for the development. There have been common views that the educated mothers are able to raise a better, smaller and healthier family, and can be more productive in their homes, and also in their workplaces (Hill and King, 1995).
Even though women form half of mankind, they are two thirds in terms of illiterates of the world (Mackenzie, 1993). This is the reason why a higher number of males, in comparison to females, continue to go to school and climb the educational ladder in the less industrialized economies of Africa, which includes Kenya (Mueller, 1990). Africa has around 64% illiterate women; and Kenya has more than sixty percent of women as illiterates (Republic of Kenya, 1988). Owing to the structural adjustment programmes, the situation has remained more or less the same since late 1980’s. This has been coupled with budget cuts over the year in education, which has resulted in the education of women and girls being affected in an adverse manner. The majority of societies across the globe have a preference of educating the boys in comparison to the girls and this is true for the poor families (Kibera, 2002).
Education For All is a global commitment which aims to provide quality basic education to all the adults, youth and the children. Amongst the 164 governments which pledged to attain the Education For All movement, six goals had to be met by 2015 (UNESCO, 2018). Included in these nations was Kenya also but despite the efforts of the government of the nation, it continues to experience a number of challenges in attaining this. There are a number of reasons why there is still a difficulty before Kenya in attaining the goals of Education For All movement. These include high poverty levels, the gender disparities, the inadequate financial resources, teacher supply and quality, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic (Wanjohi, 2013).
The key focus of this discussion is on analysing the gender disparity which is present in the education system of Kenya, with a particular focus on the secondary education for girls. In doing so, the reasons for, or the challenges faced by the nation in achieving the objectives of the Education For All movement would be discussed. In doing so, the theories like modernisation under the framework of women in development, and the capability approach under empowerment would be focused upon, to highlight the need for removing the gender disparity in the education system of Kenya, particularly to bring literacy to the women.
Gender Disparities in Education in Kenya
Modernisation under the framework of women in development and Capability approach under empowerment
The modernization and the empowerment of the women relates to the transformation of the stance of women in the society. In context of modernization, the women have to be given equal opportunities, gender parity, and also equality in resources (Chowdry, 2015). However, when the education in Kenya in context of women is analysed, it becomes clear that there is no gender parity and the women are not given equal opportunities in both primary and secondary education. “Women in development” is focused on providing modernisation, where equal opportunity is provided, irrespective of the gender. However, in attaining the employment for all, this is not done in Kenya as of yet. Even though the timeline of 2015 has already passed, there continues to be a lack in gender parity, particularly due to the factors stated above, for instance poverty and the pandemic of HIV/AIDS.
In context of empowerment, the capability approach requires that equality in capability is given. Even though the children have no specific capability in the growing years, they do have the capacity of shaping their capabilities (Moghadam, 2007). So, this framework requires the girls in secondary education to be empowered as is done with the ones in primary education, so that they can get equality in their capabilities. This would in turn allow them to earn better and be saved from the vicious circle of poverty. Again, the discussion covered earlier shows the utter failure in this happening in Kenya, as the girls are not empowered enough to get equal capabilities. The lack of education results in them not getting the requisite skill set to earn for them, or to sustain them.
Basically, the present situation in Kenya of the girl literacy in secondary education neither follows the framework of modernization not that of the capability approach. The girls do not have equal opportunities which could in turn empower them to get the capability for getting the skills to have a better future. Even though in the last decade, significant progress has been made by Kenya in education, which has resulted in primary education enrolment having gender parity, and almost parity at secondary level; though, the data depicts that gender parity simply does not result in universal access to primary education being attained, as the enrolment in secondary education continues to be low for both genders, particularly for females. This is a key concern for girls as the data shows that more than half of secondary school age girls do not get enrolled in secondary education (UNESCO, 2012b). This again shows the lack of adherence to the frameworks of empowerment and modernization.
Empowerment and Modernization
Gender inequality
Before focusing on the gender inequality being present in the education segment of secondary education in Kenya, there is a need to highlight the gender inequality at all levels. At present, there is gender inequality in disparity of prestige and power status in between the men and women. Even though in recent past, there has been an empowerment of women in the nation due to their capabilities, and an improvement in employment and education segment for women, the nation is still curbed by gender inequality. The reason of this is in the women being considered as less capable of carrying certain tasks. For instance, the status of women in labour force continues to be undermined, and there is a wage gap in between the two genders. Even when the women are capable, they are not given the top position due to the assumption of them being focused on their personal and family obligations. Unmarried women are not given top management position due to them getting married in future and being deemed to be unable to handle work and family. The perceptions of the society in Kenya are not positive towards the women. There is also the stance of girls being a liability on parents and the boys being the bread earners for family. These perceptions of the society lay waste to the concepts of empowerment and capability.
Present State in education
Education is the key tool for the overall development of any nation. Education is also the basic and the fundamental right of every child. In order to grow as individuals and even as the society, it is critical for the development, as the education paves way for productive and successful future. Where it is made certain that the child has the access to the right based and the quality education, which has its roots in gender equality, a ripple effect for opportunities is created, which has the impact on the generations to follow. In this regard, there is a need to consider the statements made by the visionary Ghanaian educator, James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey (October 18, 1875 – July 30, 1927), where he stated that the surest manner of keeping the people down was by educating the males and by neglecting the females. It was further stated that where a man is educated, an individual is educated simply; however, where a woman is educated, an entire family is educated (Thody, 2000). Wamahiu (2011) had reciprocated these sentiments while speaking on educating the girls as being a key aspect for bettering Kenya. He stated that by educating a girl, an entire nation could be educated. There is no shortage of evidence to show that the education of women is not only beneficial at the nation level, but also at the personal, family and the community level (MoE, 2007).
The Importance of Educating Women
Universal education has been a key part of Education For All movement, and an important Millennium Development Goal, along with being the foundation for national development. In view of Tembon and Fort (2008), educating women is an effective tool for the purpose of national development, as the developing nations cannot simply afford to ignore the talent and the skill held by half of their citizens. The fact of the matter is that education of women is amongst the most valuable investment for any nation. The reason for this is that the women account for nearly half of the population of the world. The learning assessment conducted in Kenya by UWEZO (2010) in seventy districts confirmed that the literacy and the numeracy competencies of children were raised with the level of formal schooling of their mothers (Wamahiu, 2011).
It had been established in 2011 by WERD that even when the women performed nearly 2/3rd of the hours worked, they only got 1/10th of the income of the world, and have less than 1/100th of property registered in their name across the globe (Syomwene and Kindiki, 2015). Through the elimination of the gender disparities in the primary and secondary education, per se the 3rd Millennium Development Goal, the nations could also attain the other goals of it, particularly the child mortality covered under 4th, the improvement of maternal health under 5th and the HIV and AIDs prevention under the 6th Millennium Development Goal. The reason for emphasis on the Millennium Development Goal in this discussion stems from the goals of Education For All contributing to the global pursuit of these goals. A study conducted by the CSA, i.e., Centre for the Study of Adolescence highlighted that Kenya was losing approximately Ksh 60 million, which in terms of US dollar stands at $750000, for each year due to the girls leaving the schools without completing their education (Wamahiu, 2011).
With the advent of the Millennium Development Goals, goals of Education For All movement, and the Kenya Vision 2030, like the other developing nations, Kenya has intensified upon the improvement of women education by starting up a gender policy back in 2007 in education. The key goal of this gender policy in education in the nation is for establishing the mechanisms for eliminating any and all kind of gender disparity in training and research, and education, regarding the access, retention, performance, quality, outcomes, transition, completion and enrolment (MoE, 2007). There is a prohibition on any kind of discrimination through the constitution of Kenya, which particularly prohibits discrimination amongst the diversified social groups. It has been argued by Chege and Sifuna (2006) that the basic education is the key for advancing the economic activities since the 1970s for a number of groups of women in the nation. This has led to the local women having relatively higher education assuming positions of leadership for the purpose of guiding the colleagues up the economic and political ladder.
The Impact of Gender Disparities on National Development
Even with so many efforts and in progress being made in promoting the women education in the nation, the gap between the girls and the boys continue to be quite large in the area of education (Odhiambo, 2012). There has been a tremendous rise in the primary school education enrolment rates, due to the implementation of the FPE, i.e., Free Primary Education, in the recent history. There has also been observance of high primary completion rates. Since 1990, there has been a rise in the ratio of girls to boys at all levels. As per the Girl Child education Work Bank Fact Sheet (2007), there has been a rise in the enrolment of girls which attended secondary school, for 2003’s 881,328 to 2007’s 1,180,267. Though, even with the major growth in the gender gap being reduced in the enrolment at school, there continues to be major discrepancies. The most significant one was the increase in the enrolment for the year 2007 by 298,939 which had a higher number of males in comparison to females, where males stood at 181,266 and females stood at 117,673 (Syomwene and Kindiki, 2015).
These discrepancies are reflected in the results of 2011 of the KCSE, i.e., Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, where in the top 100 nation students, only 34 were females. Apart from this, from out of the top 10 schools, there were only three girls’ schools. Where the figures of the top ten candidates are seen, there were only three females and the first female student got the national rank of fourth. Similar discrepancies were reflected in the results for the years 2014 and 2014 of the KCSE. For 2013, in the KCSE results, amongst the top ten schools, there were only three girls’ schools, and when it came to the rank holding positions, the first girls’ school got the third position out of the top ten. Taking a look at the 2014 results for the KCSE, amongst the top fifteen schools, there were only three girls’ schools and the first girls’ school was at the sixth position (Syomwene and Kindiki, 2015).
It has been observed by the MoE (2007) that even with the FPE in motion in the nation, along with the other interventions, there continues to be presence of gender disparities in achievement, transition, access, performance, and retention at all education levels. This is particularly true in context of the KCSE results presented here. Again, out of 100 girls in the nation, only 76 girls complete their primary education in comparison to 87 boys as per Wamahiu (2011). With the primary education not being completed, the secondary education becomes a distinct dream, along with the drop outs from secondary education as well. This show that even with drop out being common in both genders, the girls continue to be at a disadvantage. Due to such poor transitions, there is a transition of gender imbalance at the higher education institutes. In particular, this is a poor trend due to the education being a key determinant of the social mobility. When there is gender disparity in the education, the women become ill prepared for competing in an equal manner with their male counterparts, for the different jobs which need high level technological skills, professionalism, and formal education (Chege and Sifuna, 2006). There are numerous disparities despite a number of strategies being put in place to address the gender inequalities.
The Millennium Development Goals and Education For All Movement
There is also the factor of lack of concern and the investment in girls’ education. There are a lesser number of girls in comparison to boys’ at all educational systems due to the education of boys being given more significance to that of girls. Families, which are not able to send both girl and boy at school, send their sons at school and this is seen as a better deal. The idea of girl leaving the parents home upon their marriage and being a financial liability is the reason behind it. It is also postulated that women do not require education for empowering their living. There is also a view that educated women cannot be easily controlled and are less feminine. There are also the drops out of school factors in case of girls, which include pregnancies, pre-arranged marriages (Kibera, 2002). Even in this modern world, such weddings are common in Kenyan pastoral communities (Government of Kenya and UNICEF, 1992). Even though there is an improvement in female literacy rate in the nation, it continues to be lower than males (Howard, 2017).
Education For All
To analyse the attainment of the Education For All in Kenya, there is a need to look at the goals as had been attained under it. There has been a growth in the pre-primary gross enrolment ration from 1999’s 43 to 2010’s 52. There has also been improvement in goal two where the primary net enrolment ratio has risen from 62 to 83 from 1999 to 2010, along with a decline in out of school children from 1.98 to 1.01. There has also been a rise in the lower secondary gross enrolment ratio for the same period from 65 to 91. However, in the fifth goal there has been a decline in the secondary gender parity index from 0.96 to 0.90 which shows the rise in inequality (UNESCO, 2012a).
Even with the progress in the majority of goals, millions of children are still being denied a chance to attend the school. The primary education of the nation is not enough to ensure that the basics are learned by the children. The young men between the age of 15 to 29, and who had left their school just after six years of schooling had 6% illiterate and the figure for semi-literates stood at 26%. These figures take a worse turn when it comes to the young women, where young women between the age of 15 to 29, and who had left their school just after six years of schooling had 9% illiterate and the figure for semi-literates stood at 30%. After six years of schooling, the proportion for illiterate or semi-literature women had worsened in the recent past, where the figures of 2003 stood at 24% and that of 2008 stood at 39% (UNESCO, 2012a).
Conclusion
There is also an inability in the progress reaching the marginalized. When it comes to the poor, and particularly the girls, they have a very less chance of getting in a school. In Nairobi, for 2008, all the children from rich household had gone to the school, irrespective of the gender. However, when it came to the poor girls living in North East, 55% of them had never gone to school, where 43% of the boys from the poor background and same region faced the same situation. Though, these figures were better in comparison to the figures of 2003, which stood at 71% for the poor girls, and 56% for the poor boys. Even though there has been abolition of the secondary school fee, which has resulted in the costs for secondary education being reduced for the households, the indirect costs still continue to be 12-20 time the monthly income of rural area parents, which simply makes the secondary education, out of reach for these children of the poorest households. The sum which was allocated for the purpose of compensating the secondary schools, i.e., US$164, for abolishing the school fees continues to be ten times the amount which is attained by the primary schools per pupil per annum. Only a minority of urban slums or poor rural household children are able to attend the secondary school. There would have been a more equitable distribution of the increased investment, had it been geared towards the slum settlements, pastoralist communities and remote rural areas (UNESCO, 2012a).
There are long term effects of neglecting education, and it leaves quite huge deficits in the skills amongst the young individuals. One out of every ten young individual is not able to complete primary schooling in Kenya, which results in them having to struggle for finding well paid work. More than a quarter of young individuals have less than lower secondary education, which results in them lacking the basic skill set. When it comes to the young individuals from the disadvantaged backgrounds, they have less chances of getting decent work. The figures of lower secondary education is a proof of it, where 27% men have less than lower secondary education and this figure for women stands at 32%, again highlighting the gender disparity in education. Out of the three million inhabitants of Nairobi, 60% live in slums. Young people make up 1/3rd of the population of Korogocho and Viwandani, which are the two poorest slums. As there is no secondary education in such slums, only 19% males and 12% females in Korogocho attended secondary school. One in five between the ages of 19-20 held the skill or training and only half of these could make use of their trainings for the purpose of earning income. As a result of the lack of skills, the young individuals are forever affected. This is because between the ages of 15 to 24, 50% males and 80% females had no activities to generate income. The ones who are employed have casual employment earning, which is around poverty line for 60% men and 40% women (UNESCO, 2012a).
Factors causing hurdle in gender equality
As discussed in the introduction segment, there are a number of challenges being faced by Kenya in attaining the goals of education for all. The first one in this regard is the gender disparity. The girl child in the nation still continues to be in a vulnerable state. The cultural norms, the parental gender bias, the poverty and the negative impact of the pandemic of HIV/AIDS have an adverse impact over the participation of girl child in education. There has been constant progress in the gender party which shows that the gender differences could be given away with change in attitude and public policy. However, there is a long way to go for this as only fifty nine nations have been able to attain gender equality in secondary and primary education. When it comes to the gender equality in the outcomes and the education opportunities, it becomes the most challenge task to attain, and is more difficult for measuring. There is a still a lot that needs to be done before nations like Kenya can attain equity in education and gender parity. The future prospects on the education of girls is dependent on the goals of Education For All being attained, which required commitment by stakeholders to girls education, strengthening gender unit through allocation of financial and material resources, advocacy of girl child education to be intensified, and the strategies to address the disparities in both primary and secondary education to be drafted (Wanjohi, 2013).
Another key problem in attaining the Education For All goals is the high poverty levels. The majority of nations base their hope on the opportunities provided through the strong democratic governance and for accelerating progress, the need for improving the economy has been identified. When Kenya became a republic back in 1964, the leaders of the nations took a vow for eradicating disease, poverty and most importantly the illiteracy. At present, the population which is surviving on US$ 1 per day is quite higher in comparison to the ones before, and this denotes the poverty line. Due to the high number of individuals below the poverty line, along with the pandemic of HIV/AIDS and economic crisis, the attainment of Education For All remains a distant dream. This is because poverty is seen as a factor affecting education (Wanjohi, 2013).
There is also the problem of the teacher supply and quality which is crucial for providing quality education (Mwiria, 1993). Good quality education is dependent upon the class sizes being reasonable and the pupil teacher ratios. However, there are both regional and national disparities in this ratio, due to the different factors affecting the demand and supply of teachers. A core challenge in Kenya is the financing of Education For All measures. This is due to the financial constraints caused due to factors like economic and political instability. In 2003, during the introduction of Free Primary Education and in 2008, during the introduction of Free Secondary Education, Kenya faced a number of challenges. These were related to the lack of sufficient number of teachers, along with the lack of proper facilities and equipment (Wanjohi, 2013).
Another major factor hampering the success of Education For All in Kenya is the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. In a number of nations, including Kenya, HIV/AIDS has had a negated impact over the education systems, which highlights the inadequate addressing in education planning. Education systems could help in creating awareness on this pandemic and in curbing it. Children have to suffer de facto discrimination in accessing education from HIV suffered by them or their family members. Children often have to leave their home and indulge in labour activities to earn for themselves. Due to the parents being too sick to earn, the school fees are not paid. The problem of HIV is not only faced by the children but also by the teachers. Due to the health problems owing to HIV, teacher absenteeism is caused (Wanjohi, 2013).
For the development problems being faced in the developing nations like Kenya, education for women can act as a solution. The women education provisions have the capacity of steering the nation in the progressive direction, where it could attain the goals of Education for All, Millennium Development Goal and the Kenya Vision 2030. It has been recognized by the World Bank that educating girls holds the most significance over any other investment for attaining development. Further, educating the females is the key cost effective measure of going on the development path (Tembon & Fort, 2008).
There is a need to eradicate poverty in order to boost the education, particularly for women. Women education is significant for poverty reduction not because it generates incomes, but also because it helps in reducing the poverty’s vicious cycle. Women can help the households in escaping poverty be it from earning wages or by being self employed. Their returns are used by them and by their future generations. Apart from this, educated women send their children to schools, resulting in increased education (Tembon and Fort, 2008). The findings of study presented in the report by Dollar and Gatti (1999) indicated that with the increase in the share of women in secondary education by 1%, the annual per capital income grows by 0.3% on an average. MoE (2007) supported this argument and stated that with basic education, the individual women could effectively be engaged in economic activities and therefore they could easily add to better national productivity. There are intergenerational benefits of women education as well. It has been reported by Filmer (2000) that every year for which a women gets formal education, results in the same being translated in her child to remain in the school for an additional period of 1/3rd to ½ of a year. This results in the future generations being benefitted as well.
Empowerment and women education
There is a need to put focus on empowering the women by educating them. The reason for this is stemmed in the fact that through more education, the rate of violence against women is reduced and this enables the women to leave the abusive relations. Further, the women are also encouraged to reject the adverse cultural practices, for instance, the Female Genital Mutilation and the other (Tembon and Forst, 2008). As per Sen (1999), educating women would result in them participating in household decisions, which would allow them to take a stand for themselves and bring down their vulnerability to domestic violence.
Improving maternal and infant mortality through women education
Education of women would act as a propeller for the attainment of these objectives. The educated women hold awareness regarding post natal care and also regarding the advantages of breast feeding. The children of educated women are provided balanced diet (Chen and Li, 2009). As per Schultz (1993), female schooling’s addition year resulted in reducing the child mortality being reduced by 5-10%. UNICEF (2003) established that an additional year in school resulted in a thousand women being helped in preventing maternal deaths. MoE (2007) provides that educated women could bring up better educated families and children and healthier ones as well, bringing down the maternal and infant mortality rates.
Improving family health through women education
A key problem in attaining Education For All is the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. Through women education, this issue can be resolved. This is because education of girls is deemed as the most cost effective way of improving the well-being and the health of family in nations like Kenya, and the education of males is not likely to have the same effect. The women who are educated hold the skills and the knowledge for giving proper diet to their families. The educated women attend prenatal care which helps in improving the wellbeing and health of the expectants. This is due to t eh fact that most of them can earn for themselves and can make payment for the prenatal care services along with the other requirements. Through education of women, the health of children is improved owing to the greater knowledge of mothers regarding hygiene being important (King and Hill, 1993).
The nations which have a higher level of female secondary education enrolment hold low infant mortality rate, better child nutrition and low rates of HIV/AIDS (Tembon and Forst, 2008). Education is basically the vaccine of AIDS as due to increase in education, the infections of HIV/AIDS decrease. As per the study conducted by De Walque (2004), the Ugandan women having secondary education had 3 times less chance of being HIV positive in comparison to the ones who had no education. Educated women have less vulnerability to AIDS/HIV and can also create awareness amongst the future generations. And the poor girls who live in rural areas are less likely to get primary education, resulting in being vulnerable to AIDS/HIV infection.
Conclusion
In the previous segments, a thorough discussion was carried on the women’s literacy in Kenya, where the emphasis was made on the education received by the girls, particularly the secondary education. In doing so, the use of figures was done in order to properly highlight the progress and the shortfalls, along with the need for furthering equality in the girl education in Kenya. The discussion highlighted that there are a number of factors which impact the girl education being hampered in Kenya. The leading cause in this was poverty. Due to poverty, a vicious circle gets created where the poverty forces illiteracy in girls and the illiterate girls in turn propagate illiteracy in their children. The discussion touched upon the various goals set in order to bring gender parity and the key one in this was the education for all. The different figures highlighted in context of education for all, also showed that Kenya has a long way to go, before the gaols covered under the Education For All movement are attained. Even though the deadline of 2015 for these goals has long gone, there is still a need to implement the goals set out under the employment for all.
In context of the education for all, there are a number of factors which act as a hindrance in Kenya attaining the desired targets. This includes the gender disparity, where the males are given preference over the females and this negatively impacts the participation of girl child in education, which is true for both primary and secondary education. Even though the Kenyan government is making a lot of efforts and putting in funds, there continues to be an inadequacy in financial resources. Most importantly, there is pandemic of HIV/AIDS which not only affects the children and their families, but also the teachers. All in all, there is a long way to go before the Education For All is achieved. There is still a need to put in different measures which actually reciprocate the women literacy being attained in secondary education in Kenya. Even though there have been success in primary education measures, there is a long way to go for the secondary education.
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