Abstract
Free primary education policy has substantially increased school enrollment rates in Sub-Saharan African countries. The success and sustainability depend on teachers’ perception, motivation, and proper implementation of the policy in the classroom. Few studies focus on teachers’ experiences and challenges in the process of implementing the policy. The current study presents theoretical reviews using the “bottom-up,” “top-down,” and incremental policy frameworks. The study used a desk review of the documents from the Ministry of Education and other published materials from an Education Research Program in Kenya. Findings suggest that there is no adequate empirical study to support the views and assertions concerning teachers’ experiences and motivation toward the implementation of free universal primary education policy in Kenya. There is a need for empirical research and programs to understand teachers’ experiences and challenges in translating education policy into practices.
Highlights
Implementation is the nemesis of designers, it conjures up images of plans gone awry and of social carpenters and masons who fail to build to specifications and thereby distort the beautiful blue prints of progress which were handed to them
We review applications of the top-down approach and alternative policy frameworks in the context of free primary education (FPE), in an attempt to describe the role that teachers could play in the policy process and how their participation could have impacted Kenya’s FPE policy
We searched for the documents that had the following keywords: free primary education, policy, teachers, bottom up, top down, Kenya, and incremental process
Summary
Implementation is the nemesis of designers, it conjures up images of plans gone awry and of social carpenters and masons who fail to build to specifications and thereby distort the beautiful blue prints of progress which were handed to them It provokes memories of “good” ideas that did not work and places the blame on second (and second-class) member of policy and administration team . The aim of this analytical review article was to review the free primary education (FPE) policy implementation in the framework of the “bottom-up,” the “top-down” (Darling-Hammond, 1990), and the interactive, incremental process (Haddad & Demsky, 1995) while placing the role of the primary school teachers in context. SAGE Open school teachers in context, respectively, followed by “TopDown Policies and National Policy on Teacher Training.” conclusions and recommendations are presented
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