The 100 percent transition policy is part of a global campaign to give all children access to 12 years of learning. At face value, operation ‘Tupeleke Watoto Shule’ is not only viable, but also timely and thoughtful. But, because the policy was introduced only last year, many schools, especially the national, extra county and county ones, have not had time to prepare for the surge in enrolment, which involves more than one million students.
The transition rate jumped from about 56 percent in 2004 after the introduction of free primary education in 2003, to 81.3 percent in 2017. Hence, the campaign to achieve 100 percent transition means that most of the 250,000 students who have been dropping off the education system are now on board.
Many schools have turned dining halls into dormitories, while others are giving examinations on corridors because classes are too congested. Hapless teachers have seen their workload grow and their working hours extended to cater for the high student numbers. Other schools have bought tents, which they are using as classes or libraries to ease the congestion in classes. The most affected are some national schools and top-performing extra county and county schools across the republic.
At Mang’u High School, one of the country’s oldest and consistent top performers, the enrolment has jumped from 1,259 in 2015 to 1,740 this year. Between last year and this year, there has been an increase of 375 students, pushing the institution to eight streams, from six. Its library was built to accommodate 180 while the classes, which are standard in size and meant to hold only 45 students each, are now crammed with 60.
Principal Abraham Githuka, though upbeat about the policy, says the school urgently requires more classrooms, larger and better-equipped laboratories, and a bigger library. Pointing to the dormitories, which he says were built for 40 students each but now house more than 100 boys. He says the school has only one resident nurse for the whole community, while one of the dining halls is roofed with asbestos tiles, which have been found to be harzadous to health. “We welcome the new students and we are glad we are a larger community; but we need funds to make their short stay here memorable, beneficial and enjoyable,” he says.
In Vihiga County, more than 20,000 Form Ones have already been enrolled in various schools against an average capacity of 15,000, posing a major strain on infrastructure, made worse by a biting teacher shortage. With a student population of more than 2,000, Chavakali High School now has eight streams for each class.
Each stream, Principal John Kuira says, has more than 70 students instead of the ideal 45. “We don’t have any solution yet as we are yet to get funds to expand our infrastructure. Students are congested in classrooms, making it difficult for teachers to freely move around while teaching,” he says. The school has 55 teachers employed by the Teachers Service Commission and 15 hired by the Board of Management. But it requires 15 more.