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2. High school fees levied. Secondary education in Kenya is the most expensive level of education in Kenya. Those who access it are those who are able to afford good education in primary schools. The report adds that the best secondary schools admit students from private academies which are beyond the reach of majority of Kenyans. Another conspicuous issue concerning girls’ education is school fees versus child preference. Most parents would prefer having their sons attend schools as opposed to their daughters. This choice is made in the perceptions of the girls’ weakness and vulnerability on account of sex and sexuality. Sons are regarded as assets while girls are liabilities in the family.
3. Cultures which promote female genital mutilation and early marriages have for a long time, been absorbed into our social systems. Our cultures say a woman’s place is in the kitchen. Period. Women who go beyond the kitchen are frowned at. In most rural schools, girls hurry to get home from the school in the evening so as to engage in domestic chores while boys are left to go scot-free. Local leaders have not made their campaigns - whether for political or HIV/AIDS awareness - with an education setting emphasizing the need to educate the girl-child. The government can, together with stakeholders, integrate education of the girl-child, especially during initiation ceremonies (not FGM), funerals, weddings or any other association as a forum for campaigning the EFA framework with the girl-child in mind. This can be done while insisting that girls can grow up into productive citizens if only educated. In research conducted in 1998, female enrolment and persistence were shown to be adversely affected by parents’ perceptions, which included cost in heavy non-financial expenses; for instance, time is lost in preparation for motherhood and marriage and the opportunity cost of sending a girl-child to school is high as opposed to gains from marrying her off for dowry. A girl is a temporary family member as she joins another family upon marriage. The study concludes that early marriage is a major factor affecting girls’ retention. Marriage age for Samburu girls, adds the report, is 12 years and in some cases, is 10 years old. As though to add weight to the report, a study of schooling and adolescents in Kilifi, Nyeri and Nakuru noted that early marriage was common among teenage girls, pointing out that nearly 90% of girls remain single in Nyeri through the age of 18, while over 50% are married off in Kilifi and 40% in Nakuru at that age. On the other hand, a boy in the same age group had been married and only two indicated they had lived or were currently living with a woman. Culture is also a tool that has unreasonably been used to aggrandize girls right from birth through her life. A Kwale head teacher’s view on girls’ education is seen as alien. The head teacher is quoted as saying that girls who are educated do not assist their parents. Accordingly, their knowledge and earnings will be moved to the other family when she is married. At the same time, educated women are viewed as undisciplined and spoiled – that they can afford to speak in front of men during gatherings.
4. Another factor that inhibits girls’ education is the teachers’ bias in shaping their pupils for career development. Mathematics and sciences are perceived to be “male” subjects, while females are expected to appreciate arts. More teachers prefer teaching male students as opposed to females. For instance, in a 40-minute lesson, a teacher – either male or female - interacts with boys at an average of 17.8 times and girls at 15.7 times. The same teacher has 15.4 positive tone interactions with boys and only 13.8 with girls. One researcher in the study concludes as follows: “Most questions were directed to boys and not girls. The teacher told the girls that if they do not improve, he could foresee them joining the local Mathenge Technical Institute instead of a good boarding (secondary) school…The teacher constantly told the class that the girls do not use common sense and that is why they might not make good sales persons. ‘Lazy salesmen like some of you girls get very little commission’, the teacher told the class”.
The only way in which girls and women can be liberated, is in challenging power relations, as Njoki Wainaina puts it. Women should not just throw the towel down at the expense of their denied inherent rights. Okumba Miruka clearly echoes such sentiments when he says “you cannot go far in gender training if you do not believe in it. A successful trainer makes an integral part of his/her life by living the values he/she advocates. As a male gender trainer, I have had to constantly re-define values through which active and constant reflection of my life and social events otherwise taken for granted. In promoting gender cause, I have adopted the ‘no missed opportunity’ approach, which means that I integrate gender in everything I do, not only in training contexts.”
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Writer Profile
Mbũrũ
I am a researcher on educational issues especially in the rural areas, with much emphasis on girls' education.
As a trained journalist, I have a lot of concern with the handling of the education sub-sector in Kenya and take a critical role in viewing the reforms currently being conducted to integrate education structures for the sake of the youth in Kenya.
One major aspect, sadly, is that Kenya has been sovereign for over four decades but has been the only African country besides Somalia not to have made education compulsory, free and basic. For Somalia it can be understood - the country had been in civil strife since 1992- but for Kenya the politics of the day have played a negative role in reducing the promotion of education to a system sheer competition, instead of progressive
Apart from that, I write fictitious literature.
Currently I am working on prose on love and betrayal and a collection of poems.
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