Pupils skip school due to hunger

Prime Minister Raila Odinga (in cap) and President Kibaki (behind the PM) distribute food in Marsabit on Tuesday. They reassured wananchi that all resources would be used to ensure that nobody starved. Photo/PPS

What you need to know:

  • Number of children at home now 2m, with slums and arid areas worst hit

More than 500,000 children in Kenya have been pushed out of school, largely by the biting food shortage, according to a new report.

The number of out-of-school children stands at two million, up from 1.5 million, says a group of local non-profit organisations engaged in education.

In a report obtained on Tuesday, the Elimu Yetu Coalition said the rise in drop-out rates posed a major threat to the free learning programme.

The introduction of the programme in 2003 saw a rise in enrolment from 5.9 million pupils to 8.3 million last year.

Worst affected are children in urban slums and arid and semi-arid lands.

The findings come less than a month after the government announced it would allow over 2.5 million children in famine-hit areas to remain in schools during the August holidays to be fed under the School Feeding Programme.

Previously, the government had said it was putting in place measures to enrol the 1.5 million minors, believed to be engaged in child labour, in learning institutions.

Currently, the number of primary schools is estimated to be about 20,000 and that of secondary schools 5,000.

The “Taking Stock, Counting Gains and Mapping the Road to 2015” report says the number of primary schools in the country is inadequate to provide classrooms for all the targeted children.

It notes that most schools in towns are overcrowded, with their large class sizes raising the teacher-pupil ratios to 1:100.

The report recommends that more teachers be recruited to ensure quality of teaching.

Terms of service

“The Teachers Service Commission should conduct reforms and reviews to improve the teaching profession for better service delivery by improving conditions and terms of service,” says the report, whose findings are based on a recent workshop in Nairobi.

The civil society groups opposed the hiring of teachers as interns, and instead call for permanent employment.

Their recommendation comes just a week after the government started recruiting 12,600 teachers on temporary basis.