Keen eye on early education

When Dr Sara Ruto jetted to India two years ago for an academic trip, it did not occur to her that what she would learn would spell a death knell to her teaching career.

Twaweza East Africa, a Tanzania-based organisation, had organised a trip for East African educationists to see if what India was doing on education of young children was worth emulating.

Then, Dr Ruto was teaching Education Foundations at Kenyatta University and went  as an education researcher and teacher. Most of the other delegates were drawn from the Ministries of Education.

“In the world of academia, it is normal to visit other countries to see if there is anything new to learn. We went to find out what Indians were doing to improve their education standards,” says Ruto.

In India, the team learnt of a people’s movement where citizens assessed if their children were learning or  were merely attending school.

“It is an initiative that covers about 600 districts. People carry out inquiries at household level to find out if children can carry out simple arithmetic or if they have basic reading skills,” explains the former lecturer.

It was an eye opener. Having been a teacher for more than 18 years, Ruto sat back and posed, “Are all Kenyan school going children getting real education or are they just attending school?”

Back from India, she decided to go fully into research on the subject, giving birth to Uwezo Kenya, an initiative that seeks to improve competencies in literacy and numeracy among children aged 6-16 years.

And when she led a team of 4,200 volunteers for data collection on 102,000 pupils in over 40,000 homes in the country last year, the stark reality struck.

One in every 10 standard eight pupils cannot do simple arithmetic meant for standard two pupils, one in every five children cannot read an English word and only a third of standard two children can read a paragraph meant for their level.

It did not stop there. In Central province, where reading levels is highest, 27 per cent of children are incompetent in numeracy, reading and arithmetic while in North Eastern, it is 55 per cent.

Generally, there were many children who were moving up classes without proper learning, according to the research done by Dr Ruto.

Findings of the research, Are Our Children Learning? were released last week in Nairobi and startled stakeholders in the education sector. And this was just the first phase of a four- phase research programme that could see more findings used to shape some education policies.

“I am concerned that it took so long to discover this anomaly. We are determined to find solutions to this problem once we have enough data,” says the don.

As Uwezo Kenya’s country co-ordinator, Ruto has already cut out her job and it will be a continuous process to dig out what ails our schooling system.

“To treat a disease, you need to know the extent to which it has got into the body. Then you administer medicine slowly. Cure cannot be a one-off affair,” she says giving an analogy of her organisation’s path towards correcting the worrying trend.

She acknowledges that education is dear to her and a look at her professional history will confirm this.

After her O-levels at Loreto Convent, Matunda near Kitale, Ruto joined Kyeni Girls in Embu in 1985 for her A-levels.

She had chosen a school far away from home because she wanted to know how students from other parts of the country schooled.

“I am quite adventurous and thought I needed to sample a school outside my Rift Valley background,” she says.

She performed well and in 1987, she joined Kenyatta University for a bachelor of education degree course and took up English language and literature. “ I love drama and sports and I did not become a teacher by mistake,” Ruto points out.

But when she was posted to Aldai Girls High School after graduation in 1991, she found teaching at a local school too routine for her character.

Her mother, who was also a career teacher, encouraged her to scale higher heights in academia and a year later, she was back for a master’s degree at Kenyatta University.

Her research skills would be honed at this time when she became an understudy research assistant to some of the best education researchers.

“I worked with the likes of Dr Sheila Wamahiu, Prof Daniel Sifuna and Dr Okwach Abagi. I think this gave me a lot of skills and confidence,” she offers.

In 1994, she relocated to Kilimambogo Teachers Training College where she became a tutor after her master’s degree. Two years later, she was back to Kenyatta University, this time as a graduate assistant.

She was to stay here for 13 years, training student teachers education foundations course, a stint she says made her value the need for a stable foundation in a person’s early education.

All this time, for her love of the arts, Ruto served as a drama and music festivals adjudicator, and to date, she still gets a few days off her busy schedule to adjudicate.

“I just love drama,” she asserts.

It is during her lecturing tenure, that Ruto was sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study for her doctorate degree at Heidelberg University in Germany.

She does not regret leaving her job at the university last year to concentrate on full time research. A lot of research has been done on many issues only for the findings to gather dust at some shelve, but that is not her kind of research.

“Stakeholders in education are worried about the trend we are researching on and are keen to listen to our recommendations on the way forward,” she says.

When not in intensive day- to- day work, the mother of two shakes a leg as she sips her favourite drink.

On dancing, she says, “I love dancing. It makes me relaxed. Music is life.” She also loves theatre. Ruto is married to Stephen Kithu, a lecturer in Art and Design at Egerton University.

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