Browsing by Author "Rebecca, C."

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    The impact of free primary education on academic performance in selected primary schools in Kitengela Zone in Kajiado: District Kenya
    (Kampala International University, College of Education, Open and Distance Learning, 2009-08) Rebecca, C.; Leige
    The implementation of Free Primary Education in Kenya (FPE), which appears to be focused on the access goal, faces many challenges including large pupil teacher ratios, shortage of infrastructure, lack of standards of academic achievement and limited monitoring and evaluation of teaching-learning processes. There are no sound policies in place to address these challenges, which are a threat to the quality of education. Even after developing a sector wise approach to manage education, indicators show that quality of primary education is still poor. Unless urgent measures are taken to address these challenges, the quality of education is bound to degenerate, thus jeopardizing the country's development goals. Following the UNESCO framework of analyzing quality in education, this study analyses Kenya's primary education, and upon reviewing relevant literature on international practices of providing quality education, some lessons for Kenya are drawn. The study points out the importance of focusing on all factors affecting education quality namely: learner characteristics, an enabling context, enabling inputs such as teaching methods, class size, assessment methods, teaching and learning materials, physical infrastructures and facilities, school governance and human resource. Countries that have focused on educational outcomes and paid attention to these factors have seen quality of their primary education systems improve. Considering that the literature suggests that the teaching and learning environments at the school level can be improved with scarce resources, the study recommends that the government could exploit the existing resources. To enhance the quality of primary education in Kenya, the study recommends a review of the teacher training programme, establishment and monitoring of academic performance standards and deployment of voluntary teachers on terms less than those on permanent employment.