The Realities of Early Childhood Education in Rural, Rural Kenya

Oh yes, I managed to get one last blog in before I hand over my work, thank my colleagues, hug my friends and Kenyan family, and board a plane to Canada.

I had the opportunity to travel 2 hours outside of Mombasa  - which is a big deal for me since I’ve been swimming and almost drowning in School Profiles – to attend a CIT Review Meeting in Samburu.  CIT stands for Cluster Implementation Team, which comprises of trainers whom we have trained to roll out Active Learning workshops, follow-up, and support with preschool teachers.  (A cluster is a unit of organization of schools by location to be more easily managed and visited.)  These preschool teachers come from 255 schools, many of which are in very rural areas.  When you finish reading this blog, hopefully you will have a better picture in your mind of what ‘rural’ really means in Kenya.

On the road to Samburu

The Review Meeting was held for the CIT to provide challenges, success stories, and experiences after visiting, observing, and mentoring preschool teachers who had been trained in Active Learning.  The exercise was to see how the teachers were managing with their newly acquired skills and tools.

Let me start with two quotes that not only caught my attention, but really got me thinking about education in Kenya compared to Canada, and even China.

“I’ve become lazy because no one is coming to visit me.  If you come more, I can become better.” - Preschool teacher in Samburu district as quoted by CIT member.

“I didn’t prepare lesson plans and schemes because no one was coming to observe my teaching.” - Another preschool teacher in Samburu district, as quoted by CIT member.

Early Childhood Education and Development (ECDE) is a relatively new concept in Kenya. An official government policy and manual for ECDE from the Ministry of Education was drafted, signed, and distributed only two years ago.  Many preschool teachers among whom we work with closely as a school support organization have yet to read it and internalize it, even though MRC,K distributed them early last year. 

Many parents in Kenya view preschool as daycare or a place to send their kids to get used to the idea of school.  Awareness of the importance of the first five years of a child’s development and learning is very low.  Many of the villages I have visited around the area have children working alongside their parents in local shops, or walking long distances to help fetch water, or simply staying at home until they reach primary school age. 

Public primary education was declared free in Kenya a few years ago (get out there and watch the movie “The First Grader, I have yet to see it but it’s based on a true story).  However, infrastructure and resources never followed that declaration to accommodate the masses of children enrolling.   So picture a small classroom with 120 students, one poorly paid teacher, one non-paid Parent Teacher Assistant (PTA), a shortage of desks, and a shortage of books.  All too often, primary teachers have children teach other children as a system of classroom management, and many fall through the cracks.

Early Childhood Education, or preschools, are not free (but a few exceptions here and there), but if you can picture how bereft of resources the primary system is – you can only imagine what rural preschools are facing.  And I also would like to note here that for the large part, preschool is not free.  ECD centres either charge monthly or termly school fees, or they are attached to primary schools and the district education board is able to put aside a small amount of money to pay teacher salaries and provide infrastructure.

Which brings me back to the two quotes I earlier mentioned. Preschool teachers in Kenya, especially in rural areas, are often forgotten and left behind.  Their classrooms are nonexistent and ‘class’ is taught under a tree, or they do have a classroom but it is doubly functioning as a staff room or a storage closet.  At the review meeting in Samburu, it was reported that one teacher had 168 students in a mud-walled, palm-leaf thatched, sand-floored classroom.  The teacher could not walk around the classroom, and some children were sitting outside the doorway. The district can only afford to pay for one teacher, and I doubt the parents are able to pay any school fees.  This school in particular is located two hours (by boda boda/ motorcycle) from a main highway – in the middle of nowhere. 

Truly rural life

This might explain why preschool teachers in rural areas don’t give 100% in their teaching efforts.  It might explain why they become ‘lazy’ and don’t write lesson plans.  It might also explain why they become excited when someone does come and visit to provide support and guidance.

In Canada, to work as an ECD teacher or professional, you need a 4 year certificate course under your belt.  In China, you need a four year degree and a teacher’s certificate.  In both instances, you are paid fairly well, are monitored fairly closely, have more than enough classroom materials, and have frequent interaction with parents. 

In Kenya, the awareness level of the importance of ECD is very low. Teachers are paid between $10 to $30 a month, if at all, and are ignored for the most part. Preschool is treated as free daycare.  But the amazing thing out of all of this, is once these teachers were trained in Active Learning methods and visited for support, they expressed that they will make a better effort.  All they really needed was to be recognized. 

So to follow the above quotes, a CIT member reflected, “Now that we have visited them, these teachers want change, they are accepting change.” That’s one small step for a preschool teacher in rural Samburu, and one giant leap for ECD in Kenya’s marginalized areas.