Equitable access to quality education is perhaps the closest approximation to a universal panacea. Advancing access to quality education, especially for women, can improve health and economic outcomes for hundreds of millions of households.
Last week the Global Education Summit co-hosted by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta raised $4 billion (Sh434 billion) for the Global Partnership for Education.
In addition, 19 heads of state made a political declaration on education financing, in which they committed to spend at least 20 per cent of annual budgets on education. This would mobilise $196 billion in public funding for education over the next five years.
At the Summit held in London, businesses, development banks and private foundations also rallied, mobilising more than $1.1 billion (Sh119 billion) in catalytic co-financing to partner countries in addition to investments from the GPE.
More importantly, the business community and private foundations committed to strengthening data systems to drive evidence-based improvements in education systems.
According to the GPE Board chair Julia Gillard, the summit is a big funding boost to millions of children buffeted by loss of learning owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Unfinished learning along with school dropout is exacerbating an already grim learning crisis in most low-income countries. Moreover, we have also witnessed staggering but unsurprising disparities in learning achievement in the so-called rich nations.
While the emotive outpouring of global generosity to fund education is heartwarming, I think it is more of the same and the outcome is likely to be more of the same.
That outcome is chronic poor learning outcomes. The Service Delivery Indicators report, a joint initiative of the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the African Economic Research Consortium, has shown that there is a disconnect between Kenya’s spending on education and learning outcomes.
Gathering kids into seats in a building has not translated into learning. In its 2016 assessment of basic literacy and numeracy, Uwezo revealed that on average 30 out of 100 Std 3 pupils could do Std 2 work. In a 2019 study Uwezo reported that literacy and numeracy levels of primary 3 and primary 6 pupils declined between 2015 and 2018.
In his book Rebirth of Education: Schooling Ain’t Learning Lent Pritchett recounts the outrage of an Indian father who believes his 13-year-old son will labour like a brute to eke out a living because for five years he learnt nothing in school.
According to a recent SDI report, just a third of public school teachers showed good mastery of the content they teach. Classroom absence rate was estimated at nearly 50 per cent.
Senior teachers working in the same district they were born in were more likely to be absent. Compared to private school children, public school children receive on average 20 days less of teaching time per term. Only one in five pupils in Kenya has the required textbook.
GPE and state-led investments in education must follow the evidence. We can no longer afford the luxury of blunt, evidence-free top-down interventions.
Views expressed are the writer’s
