It’s time to reimagine future of learning in unequal Kenya
Friday January 01 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted lives across the world, including Kenya. It has been especially devastating for learners, their families, and educators. Before his latest statement signalling the reopening of schools, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha cited a lack of compliance to Covid-19 health and safety protocols for the continued closure of learning institutions.
Where learning has taken place, it has relied on TV, radio, as well as digital tools. And while technology offers extraordinary opportunities to connect, educate and unite in unprecedented way, learners from low-income households are left behind without digital access and support. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, only 20 percent of Kenyans have access to the Internet. Kenya’s formal education system, with a genesis in a colonial past, remains a sorting system for the country’s youth. The pre-existi
Funding of basic and higher education institutions in light of Covid-19 pandemic will be a major focus this year.
Expansion of school and colleges infrastructure will be a challenge to decongest classes to meet social distancing protocols.
Mopping up learners, including pregnant girls, those in forced marriages, boys absorbed in menial jobs to stem the rate of schools drop out.
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Pushing for curriculum recovery out of the lost time and managing the transition of learners.
The movement of learners across schools caused by the closure of some private schools, re-location by parents who lost or changed jobs.
Coronavirus upends best laid education plans in tough year
Wednesday December 30 2020
Children play at Star of Hope Primary in Lunga Lunga village, Industrial Area Nairobi attends to a student on November 2. Schools reopen on January 4. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NMG
By LYNET IGADWAH
Summary
Many parents were optimistic that the interruption in the first term would soon be over and their children back in class. In hindsight now, Kenyans were underestimating the disruptive power of the pandemic whose impact they had yet to fully comprehend.
As the Ministry of Education grappled with unworkable school reopening dates in subsequent months when Covid-19 infections spiked, it became clear that pupils and students were in real danger of losing out on an academic year.
THE STANDARD By
Daniel Wesangula |
January 1st 2021 at 00:00:00 GMT +0300
Zachary Murimi, a Form Four leaver, lifts a job placard along Mombasa Road in Nairobi, on Thursday, October 01 2020 as he pleads with well-wishers to offer him any available job opportunity. [David Njaaga, Standard]
While everyone else was making plans to have a great 2020, a pandemic introduced itself to the world.
First, it announced its presence in the Chinese province of Wuhan before going global, touching every continent, except Antarctica; touching almost every nation and almost every neighbourhood.
The results have been the devastation of the global economy and human relations. While there are people or industries that have remained untouched, millions have been negatively affected by the consequences of a pandemic.
When Kim Powell became the principal of Sandston Elementary, the school was only partially accredited because too many kids were falling behind in reading and math. She was determined to keep her finger on the pulse of what could be causing her students to struggle.
Sheâll be the first to admit that she didnât understand much about the circumstances of the students attending her school, where about six out of 10 students are economically disadvantaged.
After a lot of hard work, dedication and insight, the school has been fully accredited since 2017, and Powell has led Sandston Elementary to be one of two schools selected by the Virginia Department of Education as a Distinguished School under the National Association of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Sandston received the award for serving its homeless and economically disadvantaged population.