Are national schools truly national?
What you need to know:
- Alliance High School (boys) is the only school that admitted at least a student to Form One from all 47 counties
- At least 71 schools had students selected from more than 75 per cent of the counties (36 counties)
- 11 schools had students from less than one-third of the counties (15 counties)
Nation Newsplex sought to find out if the national schools were living up to their name and absorbing students from across the country.
Alliance High School (Boys) is the only school that admitted at least a student to form one from all 47 counties. Of the 360 students that were called to the school 23 (six per cent) came from Kiambu County with Nairobi getting the second highest number 20 (six per cent) followed by Kakamega 18 (five per cent).
However, school heads complain that the funds received to upgrade their schools have not been sufficient.
In second place was the neighbouring Alliance Girls High School that had students from 46 of the counties with the largest fraction of the 270 students coming from Nairobi with 18 (seven per cent). Wajir and Kitui tied in second place with 15 (six per cent) while Kiambu the home country provided 14 students (five per cent).
At least 71 schools had students selected from more than 75 per cent of the counties (36 counties). In contrast 11 schools had students from less than one-third of the counties (15 counties).
According to the 2015 Economic Survey there are 29,460 primary schools in Kenya of which 21, 718 (74 per cent) are public and 7,742 (26 per cent) are private.
INSUFFICIENT UPGRADE FUNDS
The Director Secondary and Tertiary Education (DSTE) at the Ministry of Education Robert Masese said there is concentration of schools in some areas with some region being net exporters of students to other regions.
He identified Nairobi County which he said is facing shortage of schools as it had a deficit of 24,500 places which means that it requires 544 new streams.
“We have enough schools in some region and what we need now is to expand them instead of starting new ones,” said the director.
Education Principal Secretary Bellio Kipsang disclosed that annually the government releases Sh600 million to the newly-upgraded national schools to improve their infrastructure and turn them into centres of excellence. The national schools upgrading programme was initiated in 2012 and has seen the schools increase from 18 in 2012 to 103 in 2016 with the admission capacity rising to over 23,000 up from about 4,100.
However school heads complain that the funds received to upgrade their schools have not been sufficient.
Net enrolment rate of students in learning institutions has registered tremendous growth. Enrolment in primary schools rose from 9.8 million in 2012 to 10.2 million this year while in secondary schools it rose from 1.9 million in 2012 to 2.3 million. KCPE candidature has grown from 727,054 in 2009 to 938,874 in 2015.
