Report: Grade 6 learners cannot read Grade 3 English story

About 23 per cent of Grade 6 learners in Central cannot read with comprehension a Grade 3 appropriate English story, a new report has said.

Similarly, only 77.4 per cent of Grade 4 learners can solve a Grade 3 appropriate division problem with those from urban areas outperforming pupils from rural-areas.

The Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Assessment 2024 report released by Usawa Agenda, says though a high number of children are enrolled in school, many are not accessing quality education.

The report features data collected in Murang’a, Kiambu, Nyeri, Kirinyaga and Nyandarua counties between June and July last year.

It was launched in Murang’a county by acting regional commissioner Thomas Nyoro.

Director Emmanuel Manyasa worked with 51 organisations and deployed 1,996 volunteers, 1,953 village elders to cover 1,996 enumeration areas.

About 38,634 homes were visited and 39,298 children between the age of six and 15 assessed.

About 1,813 public and private primary schools were also visited and their facilities, personnel, leadership, empowerment levels and performance in 2022 KCPE assessed.

“Many of those completing primary education are unable to read basic text,” Manyasa said.

According to the report, a child with disability in an urban area is 15 times more likely to have never enrolled in school.

It says women are underrepresented in primary school management positions with only 18.4 per cent of board of management chairpersons being women.

School enrolment is higher at 95.6 per cent in urban areas and 94.5 per cent in rural areas compared to the national rate of 90 per cent.

Girls’ school enrolment rate is marginally higher at 95.3 per cent compared to 95 per cent for boys except in Kirinyaga county where boys’ enrolment is at 95 per cent against 93 per cent for girls.

The highest enrolment was recorded in Kiambu county with 96.2 per cent of girls and 95.6 per cent of boys enrolled.

Nationally, nine per cent of school going children were out of school, 4.6 per cent never enrolled while 4.4 per cent dropped out.

“In the Central, 4.9 per cent of school-aged children were out of school, 1.3 per cent had never enrolled while 3.6 per cent dropped out,” the report says.

Nyeri county had the highest number of school-aged children who were not in school at 6.1 per cent while Kirinyaga had the highest drop-out rate at 4.9 per cent, marginally higher that the national rate.

Nyeri also recorded the highest number of pre-school-age boys who were out of school at 15.4 per cent while Kirinyaga had the highest percentage of girls who are out of school at 15 per cent.

Nyandarua county had the highest number of primary school children not in school at 6.4 per cent and the lowest percentage of children of preschool age out of school at 2.7 per cent.

In Murang’a, 9.1 per cent of boys and 10.7 per cent of girls aged between four and 15 years were out of school.

About 53 per cent of boys were enrolled in ECDE compared to 46.6 per cent with Kiambu recording the highest number of learners enrolled in private facilities at 60 per cent compared to the national average of 40.5 per cent.

“On the day of the visit, the region had a marginally lower absenteeism rate at 14 per cent compared to 14.2 per cent nationally. Kiambu had the highest rate with 20.5 per cent being absent,” the report says.

About 45.6 per cent of the absent learners had been sent away for school fees.

The pupil-teacher ration in primary schools in the region was 39:1 while in preschool it stood at 25:1, well within Kenya’s recommended ratios.

In Kiambu however, the ratio was the highest at 57:1 while Kirinyaga had the lowest at 27:1.

About 36.7 per cent of girls were reported pregnant in the region in the year leading to the survey with 57.7 per cent being from Kiambu county while only 7.1 per cent were from Nyandarua.

None of the expectant girls in Nyandarua returned to school while Kiambu had the highest return-to-school rate of 46.4 per cent of the reported pregnancies.

In Kirinyaga county, 80 per cent of school-heads identified counselling as one of the critical services extended to pregnant girls while none of the headteachers interviewed in Nyandarua mentioned readmitting the girls back to school.

About 44.5 per cent of schools identified stigma as the main challenge facing pregnant girls and teen mothers and 14.6 per cent cited lack of support from the school community.

Only 6.4 per cent of schools in Kirinyaga had a library compared to 51.7 per cent in Nyeri county and only Murang’a schools reported incidents of learners sitting on the floor.

Nyeri county had 65.5 per cent of schools implementing a feeding programme with Kiambu coming second with 62.4 per cent while Nyandarua lagged with 43.1 per cent.

In Nyeri, 31 pupils shared one toilet as compared to 72 in Kiambu.

About 65.6 percent of parents in the region did not like the CBC due to the high-cost purchases of learning materials compared to 69.1 per cent nationally.

“Nyeri county leads the way with the highest number of parents opposed to the cost of learning materials at 72.9 per cent.”