A presentation of EFA priorities as seen by the Kenya Primary Schools Headteachers Association given at the IAU Workshop on higher education for EFA held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 24-25 January 2013. Presented by Charles Kado, Kenya Primary Schools Headteachers Association
1. ENVISIONING HIGHER EDUCATION
FOR EDUCATION FOR ALL LOCALLY
THE PERSPECTIVE FROM PRIMARY
EDUCATION ON LOCAL PRIORITIES IN
EFA
Presented by Charles Kado for KEPSHA
2. • Goals 1 and 6 provide guidance on what types
of learning are important at different age
levels. EFA Goal 1 is aimed at “expanding and
improving comprehensive early childhood
care and education, especially for the most
vulnerable and disadvantaged children.”
3. • The Dakar Framework for Action (2000),
further states that such programmes should
focus on all a child’s needs including health,
nutrition and hygiene, cognitive and social
development. This broad vision of education
and holistic approach to sector development
was fully embraced by Kenya as a critical
vehicle for realizing Vision 2030.
4. Population Growth
• The number of children in schools have been
growing just as the Kenyan population has
been increasing.
• The freezing of teacher employment in the
1990s has never been lifted.
• This in essence means and it can be verified
from the school records that the teacher
population has been decreasing in most
schools as the number of children increase.
5. • EFA Goal 6 is “Improving every aspect of
quality of education and ensuring their
excellence so that recognized and measurable
learning outcomes are achieved by
all, especially in literacy, numeracy and
essential life skills.”
6. Progress Noted
• Strong political will and commitment as shown in the
campaigns
• Sustained allocation of the state budget to the primary
education sector especially since 2003.
• Development and implementation of major policies and
interventions enabling the programmes growth.
• Enforcing the Free Primary Education and enacting it in the
constitution.
• Rolling out of child friendly school initiative to improve the
teaching learning environment.
• Provision of mid day meals for children especially from
schools in the disadvantaged zones.
• Provision of learning materials under the FPE programme
7. Challenges
• Regional disparities in access, equity, quality and retention.
• Inadequate financing of education programmes.
• Lack of adequate teaching force.
• Inadequate resources for ensuring effective management, implementation
and service provision of FPE programme.
• Inadequate infrastructure ( furniture, sanitation, classrooms)
• Inappropriate learning environment including special needs learning.
• Lack of parental involvement.
• HIV/AIDS, substance abuse and poverty.
• Overcrowded classes.
• Ineffective curricula implementation resulting into low mastery of literacy
and numeracy skills.
• Inadequate ICT capacity and infrastructure for the implementation of e-
learning.
• Low quality of education for learners with special needs.
8. Role of Higher Education
• Contribute to the development and improvement
of education at all levels including the training of
teachers.
• Higher education should reinforce its role of
service to the society, especially in activities
aimed at eliminating poverty, values and illiteracy.
• Higher education is at the top of the education
pyramid and determines to a large extent the
state of education system of the country
especially its quality.
9. HE Role cont’d
• Institutions of higher education can not isolate
themselves from surrounding social problems
and therefore they just have to be linked to
the primary education sector without pointing
fingers as the usual norm of problem
resolution.
• This is indeed how we in the primary sector
feel.
11. • Over twelve years have passed since the
international community adopted the six EFA
Goals at the World Education Forum held in
Dakar, Senegal in 2000. Kenya adopted the FPE in
2003 and it has since been entrenched into the
constitution 2010. There is still KCPE that is used
as criteria for form 1 selection. The challenges
appear more than the gains made and although
this is a noble idea I believe we need to address
the challenges in the primary sector if HE has to
play its role and a partner in EFA.
