Letters

Adult education exposes re-entry gaps for girls

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Adult education learners at Olepolos Primary School during the class lessons. PHOTO | PONCIANO ODONGO | NMG

I get a bittersweet flavour from the Kenya Economic Survey, 2021 data showing that 120,937 and 59,458 female and male adult learners respectively were enrolled across the country in 2020.

The 34 percent difference is the oxymoron in girls’ education. Statistically, it stirs up pleasure and pain. Spaces have been opened up for young girls and women to improve literacy, numeracy and communication skills despite dropping out of school.

However, we still have social, cultural, environmental and economic factors that drive girls out of classrooms and throw hurdles along their re-entry path to full-time learning.

Having more women than men in adult education centres proves that despite achieving a near-parity in enrolment of boys and girls at all levels of basic education, it is still more difficult for a girl to re-enter education space than it is for a boy after dropping out of school.

Learning interruption has a domino effect. It often throws girls into a space in which their lives take a trajectory towards adult responsibility, making it harder for them to re-enter the full-time learning space.

They get trapped in a matrix of assumed roles with far-reaching skill gaps. Later, they are compelled to thirst for and seek foundational skills on numeracy to improve their income generation and become financially independent, health information to overcome the challenges of motherhood and raising a family or even soft skills to fit in the wider social and economic circles.

Kenya has progressively taken bold steps to enhance access to and safeguard the education of boys and girls. In 2011, female genital mutilation was criminalised with a view to safeguarding the rights of girls and women. The practice is yet to be eradicated.

The National Guidelines for School Re-Entry in Early Learning and Basic Education also aims to enhance retention and transition.

Learners who drop out due to drug and substance abuse, early pregnancies, child labour and trafficking, inhibitive cultural practices, mental health, conflict and climate-related emergencies among other things are accorded a structured re-entry framework to the education space.

According to Unicef, factors such as poverty, gender-based violence, discrimination and unequal gender norms about girls’ role in society contribute to the unacceptably high number of adolescent girls who are excluded from a formal secondary education globally.

Kenya National Council for Population and Development recognises in The Draft Action Plan for Addressing Adolescent Health and Teenage Pregnancy in Kenya (2022-2027) the need to protect the about 24 percent of Kenya's population that is aged 10-19 years. These young people engage in risky behaviour with adverse educational, health, social, mental and economic consequences.

So dire is the situation that in October, ‘Operation Come to School, Phase Two’ was initiated to get about 250,000 children back into school by the end of 2023. The project is implemented by the Ministry of Education and Unicef, in partnership with Educate a Child, a programme of the Education Above All Foundation.

It is targeting children aged six to 13 years in 16 counties where children are most at risk of dropping out of class.

Education is the springboard that launches other SDGs, globally. In Kenya, it is a key road map to achieving Vision 2030 goals. The country needs a skilled population to productively drive the agenda.

Access to equal, uninterrupted learning opportunities is an irreducible minimum. We must promote and strengthen programmes that remove the unique obstacles from re-entry pathway to education space for girls.

Allan Onunga, educator