According to United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), education infrastructure includes suitable spaces to learn. This is one of the most basic elements necessary to ensure access to education, with school classrooms being the most common place in which structured learning takes place with groups of children.
While learning also takes place in a variety of spaces and places including tents, temporary shelters, plastic sheeting, under the shades of trees, places of worship and people’s homes, parents and communities expect formal education to take place in classrooms that are designed for safety and comfort.
Some of the attributes of adequate education infrastructure include sufficient space per child, usually guided by standards set by the Ministry of Education, enough space for 30-40 children per classroom, to permit efficient teaching and construction methods that
ensure the safety of children in school, suited to natural hazards of the region.
Others are adequate separate sanitary facilities for boys and girls and for staff and electricity and internet connectivity. However, UNESCO identifies inadequacy of learning space and associated facilities as a pervasive factor for day school children in virtually all upcoming public primary schools in rural parts of Kenya.
This inadequacy of learning space is one of the notable impacts of Free Primary Education (FPE) since its introduction in Kenya in 2003, which is coupled with dramatic increase in primary enrollment, resulting in more than 1.5 million children who were previously out of school joining primary schools.
“Serious challenges have bedevilled the implementation of the FPE policy including, congested classrooms, limited physical facilities and shortage of qualified teachers that have negatively impacted on the quality of teaching,” the report says.
Mukangu Salvation Army primary school in Chevaywa ward in Lugari Sub County is an
example of upcoming schools that paint a grim picture due to lack of sufficient education infrastructure countrywide.
With a current population of over 350 pupils, Mukangu primary school is short of the basic education infrastructure, right from space to teaching staff.
Dilapidated mud-walled classrooms coupled with pupils learning under shades of trees are some of the images that greet visitors as they enter the school’s main gate. “Except for one modern classroom that was constructed by Lugari Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in 2014, the rest are mud-walled structures in deplorable states,” said Mrs Salome Juma, the headteacher.
A spot check by West Media reveals the precarious environment inside the mud
classrooms from which pupils and teachers conduct the learning activity. Besides the moist floors and holed walls, the weak structures lean precariously as if ready to fall anytime.
Already two of the classroom structures have been declared unfit after their rooftops were blown off following the recent earthquake, which destroyed several buildings in Tanzania.
“Standard one and six pupils are now learning on the veranda of the standard eight class while others under shades of trees following the tremor,” reported Mrs Juma, adding the situation has led to increased incidents of truancy among her pupils.
Lack of decent sanitary facility has forced both pupil and teachers to share the only available two toilet structures, which are dilapidated, “A situation that infringes on my teaching staff’s privacy,” adds Mrs Juma.
The grim scenario has adversely affected the morale of the teaching staff whom according to the head teacher would not hesitate to leave if such an opportunity gets their way.
“But with the sorry conditions, I thank my teachers for working hard and enabling our school to trounce our neighbours in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE),” remarked Mrs Juma.
According to official records, the school took five and seven students to county schools from the 2014 and 2015 KCSE examinations respectively.
Currently, the school has a total of seven teachers employed by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), which according to the head teacher falls below the prescribed standards in terms of teacher-pupil ratio.
With the government steadily rolling out the Digital Literacy Programme, the head has made a passionate appeal for infrastructural assistance from stakeholders and well-wishers to enable the school to embrace the ambitious programme.
Sub County Education Officer, Mr Simon Wanjohi, regretted the sorry state of affairs at Mukangu primary and joined the head teacher in calling for help from interested donors, well-wishers and stakeholders. “Such are some of the many challenges most schools have been grappling with since the inception of FPE across the country,” observed Wanjohi.