National Assessment For The Annual Learning Assessment Report

Uwezo Kenya has partnered with SmartCitizens to cover Bomet and Chepalungu districts in the National Assessment for the Annual Learning Assessment Report. SmartCitizens will coordinate the project in the mentioned districts, whose ultimate goal is to improve the quality of education.

The truly important measure is not how many children are signed up for school (enrolment) or even how many are showing up in school (attendance), but, how many of our children are learning?

Across East Africa, huge progress has been made in basic education in the last decade. Enrolments are up in both primary and secondary education, with millions more able to go to school. Tens of thousands of classrooms have been built and tens of thousands of teachers been added to the rolls. These are no easy feats; they have required significant political commitment and larger allocations of public resources. Parents too have scrambled to cover their share, for even free education is never quite free, with costs of uniforms, books and pens, extra tuition, transport and whatnot.

What matters most, however, is how these achievements translate into concrete improvements in children's competencies. The point of schooling is to enable every child to develop the knowledge and wherewithal to thrive in the world - starting with basic skills in literacy and numeracy that form the foundation of the ability to be curious, think, listen, ask questions, analyze, synthesize, and communicate with confidence. Are our schools succeeding in this responsibility?

Lots of schooling is not the same as learning. Too many children in Kenya are not learning. We can no longer pretend that all is generally well, that good progress is being made.

The good news is that we can do something about it.

At the policy level, the emphasis needs to shift to learning outcomes from educational inputs alone. Celebrating new buildings and higher enrolments is dangerous folly if it masks the reality that some children in Kenya today complete primary schooling without the ability to read a paragraph. The even bigger scandal in education than the apparently misused millions of shillings currently under investigation may be the fact that even the properly allocated billions are not resulting in sufficient children being able to read and count. The central concern of education policymakers - and the core incentives system wide - need to be realigned towards promoting, measuring and rewarding real learning.

We do not need to wait for policy leaders to get their act together. Each one of us can do something. All of us can speak out - engage with head-teachers, district education officers, local leaders and MPs; call in to FM shows and write letters to the editor and make use of social networking websites; and take practical steps whether in Bible studies or after Friday prayers, in union meetings or academic seminars, and in the everyday steps we take. Each parent can take time after school to read with children, help and encourage growth, and follow-up with teachers. Each teacher can help regain respect for the teaching profession by ensuring that no student finishes each year without at least minimum competencies.

Religious and community leaders can prove their worth by ensuring that schools truly foster learning. Kenya's professionals, famed in the region for their better education and entrepreneurship, can get off the middle class traffic jam and engage with local school governance boards and parent-teacher associations, whether their children are in them or not.

Education in Kenya will not deliver on its promise because someone else will take care of it. It is up to each one of us. Ni sisi.

-From the 1st Annual Learning Assessment Report by Uwezo Kenya