A study on the progress of free primary education in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique was conducted via literature search. A critical analysis of statistics from local and international websites was done with the aim of assessing the progress of free primary education in Sub Saharan Africa. Several conclusions were made about the progress of free primary education in Sub Saharan Africa. The first observation was that, there has been a steady progress in education in relation to the out of primary school rates as well as dropout over the past three decades. The African governments failed to eradicate the out of primary school children’s exorbitant numbers since 1990. As at 1990, 38.8 million primary aged students were out of schools in Sub Saharan Africa. The figure dropped to 34.1 million as of 2016. The second observation was that the African governments have been reluctant to set the actual cost of primary education per student per year. An average cost of less than $14 per primary student per year paid as grant by the Sub Saharan governments is insufficient to promote quality. Finally, whereas education has been perceived to be a vehicle of dealing with inequality, free primary education was observed to be fueling inequality among the students within, between countries and globally. Therefore, African governments should set strong monitoring and evaluation departments with the aim of eradicating challenges of free primary education. The problems of teacher-students ratio, dropout and out of primary school children has been there three decades ago and even today. A strong monitoring and evaluation systems could have eliminated these challenges in 1990s.
| Published in | Education Journal (Volume 8, Issue 1) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.edu.20190801.15 |
| Page(s) | 30-35 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Free Primary Education, Cost of Education, Education Inequality, Education for All, Out of Primary Education
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| [2] | NCEOP, Kenya Education Report (1975). http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/CommissionReports/Report-of-the-National-Committee-on-Educational-Objectives-1975-to-1976.pdf |
| [3] | Mlinya, L. C. and Orodho, J. A. (2015). Free Primary Education Policy: Coping Strategies in Public Primary Schools in Kakamega South District, Kakamega County, Kenya. Journal of Education and Practice, Vol. 6 (12). |
| [4] | UNESCO, Global Education Monitoring Report 2016. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002457/245752e.pdf |
| [5] | World Bank and UNICEF (2009). Abolishing School Fees in Africa Lessons from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Mozambique. |
| [6] | Linsojo, K. (2018). The Financial Burden of a Tanzania Free Primary Education on Rural livelihoods: A Case Study from Rural Iringa Region, Tanzania. Development Studies Research, vol. 5 (1). |
| [7] | Tanzania Citizen Newspaper of 15 June 2017. |
| [8] | Ngwacho, G. A. (2011). The Hidden Costs of Free Primary Education and their Implication on Enrolment in Kisii Central District, Kenya. Master of Education Thesis, Kenyatta University. |
| [9] | Orodho, A. J. (2014). Policies on free primary and secondary education in East Africa: Are Kenya and Tanzania on course to attain Education for All (EFA) Goals by 2015? International Organization of Scientific Research (IOSR) Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (IOSR-JHSS). Vol. 19 (I), 11-20. |
| [10] | Ngina, F. (2018). Top Ten Most Expensive International Schools in Kenya. Standard Newspaper, 05 February 2018. |
| [11] | UNESCO, Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2015. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002322/232205e.pdf |
| [12] | NationMaster, Data on Education Progress in Sweden https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/profiles/Sweden/Education |
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APA Style
Lucy Njura Barimbui Njeru. (2019). Disturbing Lessons from Free Primary Education in Sub Saharan African: A Case of Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi & Mozambique. Education Journal, 8(1), 30-35. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20190801.15
ACS Style
Lucy Njura Barimbui Njeru. Disturbing Lessons from Free Primary Education in Sub Saharan African: A Case of Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi & Mozambique. Educ. J. 2019, 8(1), 30-35. doi: 10.11648/j.edu.20190801.15
AMA Style
Lucy Njura Barimbui Njeru. Disturbing Lessons from Free Primary Education in Sub Saharan African: A Case of Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi & Mozambique. Educ J. 2019;8(1):30-35. doi: 10.11648/j.edu.20190801.15
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Download@article{10.11648/j.edu.20190801.15,
author = {Lucy Njura Barimbui Njeru},
title = {Disturbing Lessons from Free Primary Education in Sub Saharan African: A Case of Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi & Mozambique},
journal = {Education Journal},
volume = {8},
number = {1},
pages = {30-35},
doi = {10.11648/j.edu.20190801.15},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20190801.15},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.edu.20190801.15},
abstract = {A study on the progress of free primary education in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique was conducted via literature search. A critical analysis of statistics from local and international websites was done with the aim of assessing the progress of free primary education in Sub Saharan Africa. Several conclusions were made about the progress of free primary education in Sub Saharan Africa. The first observation was that, there has been a steady progress in education in relation to the out of primary school rates as well as dropout over the past three decades. The African governments failed to eradicate the out of primary school children’s exorbitant numbers since 1990. As at 1990, 38.8 million primary aged students were out of schools in Sub Saharan Africa. The figure dropped to 34.1 million as of 2016. The second observation was that the African governments have been reluctant to set the actual cost of primary education per student per year. An average cost of less than $14 per primary student per year paid as grant by the Sub Saharan governments is insufficient to promote quality. Finally, whereas education has been perceived to be a vehicle of dealing with inequality, free primary education was observed to be fueling inequality among the students within, between countries and globally. Therefore, African governments should set strong monitoring and evaluation departments with the aim of eradicating challenges of free primary education. The problems of teacher-students ratio, dropout and out of primary school children has been there three decades ago and even today. A strong monitoring and evaluation systems could have eliminated these challenges in 1990s.},
year = {2019}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Disturbing Lessons from Free Primary Education in Sub Saharan African: A Case of Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi & Mozambique AU - Lucy Njura Barimbui Njeru Y1 - 2019/03/18 PY - 2019 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20190801.15 DO - 10.11648/j.edu.20190801.15 T2 - Education Journal JF - Education Journal JO - Education Journal SP - 30 EP - 35 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2327-2619 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20190801.15 AB - A study on the progress of free primary education in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique was conducted via literature search. A critical analysis of statistics from local and international websites was done with the aim of assessing the progress of free primary education in Sub Saharan Africa. Several conclusions were made about the progress of free primary education in Sub Saharan Africa. The first observation was that, there has been a steady progress in education in relation to the out of primary school rates as well as dropout over the past three decades. The African governments failed to eradicate the out of primary school children’s exorbitant numbers since 1990. As at 1990, 38.8 million primary aged students were out of schools in Sub Saharan Africa. The figure dropped to 34.1 million as of 2016. The second observation was that the African governments have been reluctant to set the actual cost of primary education per student per year. An average cost of less than $14 per primary student per year paid as grant by the Sub Saharan governments is insufficient to promote quality. Finally, whereas education has been perceived to be a vehicle of dealing with inequality, free primary education was observed to be fueling inequality among the students within, between countries and globally. Therefore, African governments should set strong monitoring and evaluation departments with the aim of eradicating challenges of free primary education. The problems of teacher-students ratio, dropout and out of primary school children has been there three decades ago and even today. A strong monitoring and evaluation systems could have eliminated these challenges in 1990s. VL - 8 IS - 1 ER -
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