More boys dropping out of school, millions unable to read

More boys dropping out of school, millions unable to read

More boys dropping out of school, millions unable to read

Information on how millions of kids miss school has surfaced.It is reported that male pupils of school age are dropping out at a higher rate than girls.

Additionally, the pattern suggests that children attending school from low-income households have twice the likelihood of dropping out compared to their counterparts from wealthy households.

The information is found in a report for children in the nation between the ages of six and fifteen called “Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Assessments (FLANA)”.

The majority of children who are not in school come from households where the parents do not hold a formal education, according to the research.It became clear that dropout rates were caused by the high expense of attending school and the dearth of assistive technology needed for learning.

The high percentage, according to a report published on Thursday by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), casts doubt on the government’s efforts to guarantee that all students can access basic education.Emmanuel Manyasa, the executive director of Usawa Agenda, accused the government of failing to address the growing number of school dropouts.

More students are still absconding from school, despite the government’s previous concerted attempts. We need to act immediately because we neglected to take the necessary actions. To get learners back on track, we need to re-stress them,” he stated.

“The future of millions of children is being compromised every day,” he continued. The destiny of the nation rests with them.

Manyasa said education has in the past been perceived to be a preparation for employment, which has demoralised graduates who miss on employment.

“If you make this in an economy where employment is rampant in Kenya then children see no value in education,” Manyasa said.

The survey was conducted between June and July last year involving 1.1 million learners from primary schools.

National Parents Association chairman Silas Obuhatsa blamed this on the high cost of accessing education in the country.

“The trend is worrying. The dropout can be attributed to the high fees charged for learners to access education. We are asking the government to re-examine the school fees levied to poor households,” Obuhatsa said.

Irine Yiaille, Secretary of the Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association, attributed this to carelessness.

”There has been an emphasis on girl child leaving boy child vulnerable. Let all refocus our energies on boy child enrollment” she said.

The report uncovered that most learners go through the system without showing the ability to comprehend the work of the lower grades.

The children enrolled in private schools have better learning outcomes than those in public schools in both English literacy and numeracy.

“The odds for a learner in a private primary school to have better learning outcomes in English and numeracy are 45 per cent and 28 per cent respectively higher than those of a learner in a public primary school,” the FLANA Report reads in part.

Here, students in private schools generally perform better than those in public  schools, meeting standards in reading the language text intended for lower grades  as well as in answering relevant arithmetic problems. According to the report, girls outperform boys in both language and arithmetic on a  grade 3 worksheet, with less than half of grade 4 students nationwide meeting  the required standards. But over the past three years, it has become clear that most parents would rather  their kids attend public schools.

Previous three years’ national examination outcomes revealed more than half of the candidates scored below a D plus grade.Manyasa urged the government to highlight gaps that exist that make schools unable to deliver learning expectations.

“Are we using schools to marginalise the learners? We just bring them to grow and graduate them into society. We need to look at the gaps that exist in schools so that we fill them,” he said.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Deputy Secretary General, Hesbon Otieno attributed this to the poor learning environment in schools.

”The very basic requirement that should be provided by the government and parents at home will always affect learners’ performances,” Otieno said.“We need to know what we are not giving to schools to make them enable adequate learning so at least children meet, and exceed expectations. They attract children in school affecting their performance.”

The report also pokes holes in the teacher staffing in schools saying the teacher-class ratio continues to decline even with the increasing learner population. This shows most students in schools go unattended to in schools even with government efforts to employ more teachers.

The data also demonstrates the stark gender gap in public primary school leadership, with men making up the majority of board chairs and the trend continuing.Primary school teachers are women, yet men run the institutions. The research states that the quantity, quality, and drive of educators and school administrators are important determinants of how well schools perform on national examinations.

Reducing the expense of the new Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) is something that the parents who were interviewed also want.The Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) region contains the seven (7) counties with the highest percentage of out-of-school children, with Mandera County having the highest percentage.Marsabit, Turkana, Samburu, West Pokot, Tana River, and Wajir are some of the other counties.

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