Quality of Primary Education Inputs in Urban Schools: Evidence From Nairobi

Abstract

This article examines the quality of primary school inputs in urban settlements with a view to understand how it sheds light on benchmarks of education quality indicators in Kenya. Data from a school survey that involved 83 primary schools collected in 2005 were used. The data set contains information on school quality characteristics of various types of schools in Nairobi. On the basis of the national benchmarks, the quality of education provided in government schools was shown to be “better” with regard to infrastructure, teacher qualifications, and textbook provision than that provided in all the nongovernment-owned schools. However, nongovernment schools have smaller class sizes and lower pupil—teacher ratio (PTR). The bad news is that government schools have large class sizes and higher PTR and hence low levels of teacher—pupil interaction. Nongovernment schools had poor classroom structures and a higher pupil—textbook ratio, particulary private individually owned schools and community-owned schools. It also emerges that although in the government schools, student learning space is constrained by the class size, the student learning space in nongovernment schools is constrained by the classroom size. Meeting quality benchmarks in primary schooling, therefore, remains a challenge among urban populations.