What happened to Sydney Mulama sounds like something out of an episode of television reality show 1,000 Ways To Die.
Mulama
was a Form Two student at Chesamisi High School in Bungoma County, a
lad with valid dreams; dreams that an education would have certainly
opened doors for.
However, on the evening of August 5
2013, everything changed. What should have been a routine visit to the
toilet turned into a tragedy when the pit latrine he was using
collapsed, burying him inside. He was reported missing at bed time when
he failed to show up for roll call.
The authorities
found his body hours later and had to dig him up using machines. And
just like that, his dreams were snuffed out like a candle in the wind.
Following
the unfortunate incident, an assessment of the facilities at the school
was carried out. District Education Officer for Kimilili, Elisha Omala,
says that as per the public health officers’ recommendations, newer,
sturdier latrines were put up, as well as a block of water closets.
TRICKY FOUNDATIONS
However,
Kimilili District, and indeed the rest of Kenya, is not new to sinking
toilets. Heavy rains, coupled with loose soils, make some areas tricky
bases for foundations.
For instance, the same year
Mulama died, three primary schools in Kimilili; Kibunde FYM Primary
School, Kibingei RC Primary School and Namawanga Primary School,
reported collapsed latrines. The only reason they did not make it to the
news is that this time, there were no casualties involved.
Poor
infrastructure in primary schools is a problem that the whole country
is grappling with, although, admittedly, some counties suffer more than
others. In January this year, students of Kimobo Primary School in Mount
Elgon District were sent home after the school was closed down
indefinitely due to health and safety concerns.
Public
Health officials from the district labeled the school a hazard after
discovering that it had only four latrines to serve the over 600 pupils.
As a result, some pupils were forced to use the facilities in a nearby
secondary school in a bid to avoid the impossible queues found at the
latrines every break time.
When the Mwai Kibaki
government rolled out the Free Primary Education programme in 2003,
public schools faced an unprecedented surge in enrolment numbers.
Children who had been previously locked out of school due to inability
to pay fees now only had to walk to the nearest public primary school
and start learning their ABCs. Besides, the government had made it a
criminal offence for any parent to keep their child away from school.
In
its zeal to provide education to the masses, the government glossed
over one of the most obvious challenges that increased admission into
schools would bring: infrastructure. Before the FPE, public primary
schools barely had enough classrooms or toilets. After FPE, barely
enough became grossly overstretched and congested.
In
2005, the government launched a five-year programme, the Kenya Education
Sector Support Programme to outline and implement strategies that would
guide infrastructure development in public primary schools, taking into
account the bloated numbers and contextualizing the solutions to fit
each school.
KESSP found that the biggest
infrastructure challenges facing schools were inadequate classrooms,
poor state of existing facilities such as toilets, limited number of
primary schools and a discrepancy in needs per school. Data gleaned from
the 2003 census revealed that there was a shortfall of 43,000
classrooms countrywide, and of the ones that were there, 32 per cent
were found to be below standard. These figures, however, were thought to
be on the conservative side.
To tackle these
challenges, the government proposed a programme that would see 4,000 of
the more needy schools in Kenya receive between Sh100,000 and Sh200,000
per year, depending on the enrolment numbers of the school. The funds
would be geared towards infrastructure development. A further 970
schools would receive additional grants to construct 3,880 classrooms,
9,700 toilets and upgrade water supplies.
Also included
in the larger KESSP plan was the proposal to construct 165 new primary
schools based on priority needs in the country. (Efforts to reach
ministry officials to shed light on how far the country has come since
KESSP was launched were unsuccessful).
More than eight
years after the launch of KESSP, the reality on the ground, however,
indicates that infrastructure remains a headache for learning
institutions. And the Kenya Primary School Head Teachers Association
chairman, Joseph Karuga, is worried:
“Forget
inadequate desks, some schools are completely wall-less,” he says. These
are schools with no classrooms at all, so learning takes place under
trees. Physiological needs affect learning as well, and may be part of
the reason behind poor performance in public schools as compared to
private ones, says Karuga.
This crippling need is what
has informed the decision by companies, such as Safaricom, and charity
organisations such as Red Cross and ActionAid, to take Corporate Social
Responsibility to educational institutions in a bid to provide relief
for some of the worst affected schools.
On March 4 this
year, for instance, the Safaricom Foundation constructed an ablution
block at Imara Primary School, Kayole at a cost of Sh6 million. The
school now boasts 16 new boys’ toilets and 21 new girls’ units.
“The
Sh1,020 that the government provides for each child is barely enough to
buy books, leave alone take care of a school’s infrastructure needs,”
laments Karuga. “This is why, despite the fact that primary education is
theoretically free, some schools are forced to charge a levy per child
per term to build and maintain classrooms and toilets.”
Such
is the reality at Lavington Primary School in Nairobi, where parents
pay Sh1,500 per child per term for maintenance of infrastructure.
However, Musau Ndunda, chairman of the Kenya National Association of
Parents, is of the opinion that infrastructure development is solely a
government responsibility, and that parents should not pay even a cent
to ensure their children get quality education.
“The
Education Act 2013 very clearly outlines everyone’s responsibilities,”
he says. “The government must build and equip schools while the parent
is tasked only with ensuring that the child goes to school.”
Even
with the country’s seemingly bad performance in equipping the education
sector, a report published in 2012 by United Nations Education
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) notes that Kenya’s
commitment towards funding education has not waned.
STRONG SPENDING
The
report states in part: “The economic downturn does not seem to have
adversely affected education spending: 6.7 per cent of Kenya’s GNP was
spent on education in 2010, increasing from the 5.4 per cent spent in
1999. This strong spending helped increase the primary net enrolment
ratio from 62 per cent in 1999 to 83 per cent in 2009.”
According
to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), however, Kenya is a
long way from meeting the prescribed sanitation standards. The
recommended government ratio for physical facilities in schools is 25
girls and 30 boys per latrine. It is estimated that in some places, 100
pupils share one latrine, which exposes them to infections associated
with lack of proper sanitation.
Parents enroll their
charges in schools trusting that it is a safe environment where they can
grow up and get an education. In reality, the school has become just
one more place for a child to contract a deadly disease, or worse, die
in a freak accident. Like one Sydney Mulama.
