Sep 20

Written by:
9/20/2011 7:31 PM 

HABARI: NEWS SEPTEMBER 2011

       The schools in Kenya were scheduled to resume on September 5, 2011 after a four-week break during the month of August for the third and final trimester of the year.  However, things did not go as expected in public schools because a week before the opening day, Kenyan National Union of Teachers had given the government a strike notice of seven days.  The union wants new teachers hired by the government to cope with a surge in students after the current head of state introduced free primary and secondary education.  

       Since there was no action taken by the government by the end of the notice, thousands of teachers went on strike, paralyzing schools.  Classrooms were closed for more than 10 million students as about 200,000 teachers stayed away.

      The teachers’ leaders plea to parents because since introduction of free primary schools education, the number of students in public schools has more than doubled -- a class that used to have around 30 students now has over 60 plus students with one teacher.  It becomes a very challenging task for teachers to follow keenly each student’s performance under such circumstances.  It is very difficult for the teacher to mark all the 60 plus books or exam papers in one day to prepare for another lesson. Consequently the students’ performance has gone down tremendously in public primary schools.  As a result, most private primary schools are amongst the top.

    As a result of the crowding in the public schools and so few teachers, many private schools have mushroomed and many parents who are able to pay for school fees send their children to private schools, where there is better attention from the teachers because of fewer students in class.  No parent would want their children to fail, but many parents do not have a choice but to take their children to public schools. The strike has come at a bad time for students who are due to take the public examinations.  A week without teaching means that many students may not have covered the full syllabus.

FATHER NTAIYIA JUBILEE SCHOOL:

     As a private school our teachers did not go on strike but the reporting of the children was affected because of the unclear reports to parents who do not know the difference between teachers in private and in public school.  Parents who do not have a radio or better media communication in remote and rural areas depend on what is verbally brought to them. They may not know what to do if someone comes to the village and says that parents with children in boarding schools have been told not to take their children to school because there are not enough teachers to take care of the children.

     Our students in Jubilee school resumed faster than we expected; the teachers and workers made phone calls (thanks to cell phone services) to places where children come from and asked parents to communicate and by the end of the week all but three of our 164 children were in class. The strike also ended at the end of the first week.

THIRD TRIMESTER:

     Besides many activities in the Kenyan schools each trimester, academics is the main focus between now and November. This is because at the end of November public standardized examinations are done by the children who have to move from elementary schools

(8^th graders) to secondary schools and from secondary (High) schools to colleges.  For the children who are not taking public examinations, there is an internal exam to determine their promotion to the next grade or class in the New Year.

     The high food and fuel prices have affected the capacity of the very poor to buy food and to access basic services.

COST OF LIVING

     The most challenging happening at the moment is the increasing cost of living in Kenya. The high cost of living has begun to force the victims into the streets to demand that the government take action to address the crisis.  Food and fuel prices continue to escalate, pushing the cost of living higher. This affects the school because we had budgeted our year and it is difficult to increase school fees for families that are affected as well.  Some private schools increased school fees and this made some parents to take their children away to public schools because they could no longer afford to continue.  I am hoping we can make it in Jubilee School through the end of November with what the children are currently paying even though our teachers and other workers are affected.  Construction work is affected as well and workers may need salary increment.