Reflections of Teachers in the FPE Era

Benta A Abuya,Moses Ngware

doi:10.1177/2158244016629189

Benta A Abuya, Moses Ngware

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016629189

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Journal: SAGE Open	Publication Date: Jan 1, 2016
Citations: 1	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: African Population and Health Research Center

Abstract

The free primary education policy has led to a significant increase in primary school enrollment in the country, from 8.6 million children in 2008 to 9.9 million in 2012. Increased enrollment complicated the work of teachers in the classrooms in the wake of FPE. This article seeks to document the challenges that teachers face in Kenyan classrooms across six urban sites in Kenya. Data come from the Education Research Program at the African Population and Health Research Center, collected in the months of January to March 2012. This article presents data from Focus Group Discussions, which were analyzed using thematic qualitative analysis. Results show that teachers across the six urban sites faced numerous challenges, with the most striking one being the process of evaluation by district quality assurance officers, who need to take into consideration the circumstances in which teachers teach in the schools across the country. Overall, the study called for the need to take the contexts of the respective schools into consideration even as they visit schools to ensure that teachers adhere to the quality assurance and standards procedures. This is because different schools have different teachers implementing the curricula.

Highlights

Enrollment of children who had been out of school increased drastically with the introduction of Universal Primary Education (UPE) in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA; Government of Kenya, 2005; Ngware, Oketch, Ezeh, & Mudege, 2009; Ohba, 2009; Oketch, Mutisya, Ngware, & Ezeh, 2010)
This article sought to establish the challenges as reflected by teachers in the free primary education (FPE) era in six urban sites in Kenya
The teachers were of the opinion that part of their greatest challenge comes from the very officers who are charged with the responsibility of ensuring the implementation of the curriculum—the FPE

Summary

Introduction

Enrollment of children who had been out of school increased drastically with the introduction of Universal Primary Education (UPE) in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA; Government of Kenya, 2005; Ngware, Oketch, Ezeh, & Mudege, 2009; Ohba, 2009; Oketch, Mutisya, Ngware, & Ezeh, 2010). The goal of many countries in SSA was to provide universal and free primary education (FPE) to a vast majority of the school-going children after the attainment of independence. Research evidence shows that in the post-FPE period, concerns were raised about the quality of education in a vast majority of countries (Chimombo, 2009; Deininger, 2003; Oketch & Somerset, 2010; Somerset, 2009). Research evidence suggests that many parents preferred to send their children to fee-charging private schools in the slums because of the perception that the quality of education in the public schools was poor (Oketch, Mutisya, & Sagwe, 2012; Oketch & Somerset, 2010), that these private schools achieve results with relatively low fees (Tooley & Dixon, 2007)

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