Re-targeting schools, skills and jobs in Kenya: Quantity, quality and outcomes

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The article compares the setting of targets in three different domains in Kenya—schools, skills development, and jobs. In political terms, the first of these has proved the most immediately ‘do-able’, and especially once free primary education (FPE) became the target of the new government. The additional numbers entering schools have been dramatic, but major worries remain about sustainability and the impact on quality. In the domain of skills training, target setting has proved much more elusive, as skills development covers multiple ministries, and requires some substantial engagement with employers. The result is that 2 years after the new government took over, there is still no national strategy for skills development. Finally, the political pledge to create half a million jobs a year for 5 years is examined. This proves much more demanding than the offer of FPE to evaluate. In practice, it turns out that the government did not intend to create jobs at all, but merely provide an enabling environment in which they could be created by the private sector. Nor were these to be found in the formal, urban sector of the economy, but in the hitherto much neglected rural informal economy.