Improving Quality of Education
For rural schools in Kenya, the government provides less than 45% of what is needed to run a basic school capable of delivering adequate academic standards. In 2007, the Ndonyo Wasin primary school received just 30% of the funding it would need to function at a basic academic level.
That year in Ndonyo Wasin 3 government teachers were responsible for teaching 8 classes of students, one textbook was shared among 4 students, and students would receive a small lunch, but no breakfast or dinner.
Unsurprisingly, grades at our two primary schools were well below the national average. In 2008, we decided to close the gap and produce a significant improvement in our student’s grades and academic performance. We agreed to supply the missing 60-70% funding that the schools needed to improve the quality of education offered. This would include funding to hire more teachers, buy more textbooks, create a library of more than 2,500 reading books, provide breakfast and dinner, and build up a herd of camels to provide milk to improve each child’s nutritional intake. We made it clear to both teachers and parents that these resources were conditional on the schools achieving zero teacher and student absenteeism and completing the syllabus by the end of the second term. We also added extra teaching time at the end of the day.
Our goal was to ensure that every child in every class would achieve 60% or more in all 5 subjects. We called it the “60 × 5” program. The improvements have been very effective. Mean grades have increased from less than 200 to over 300 in most classes, and they continue to improve.
The costs of the 60 X 5 program are relatively inexpensive compared with the US and Europe. For example a teacher’s salary is $2,000 a year and a nutritionally balanced Unimix porridge is only $30 for one child for the whole year. However the costs mount up and on average each class costs $9,000 a year for the full 60 X 5 program. These costs are completely unaffordable for the parents in Samburu and so we are very grateful to those generous sponsors in the US who have offered to support one of the eight classes/grades in our primary schools.