Who shapes education policy in Kenya? Global agendas, local resistance.
Summary
Researcher Patricia Wandia discusses her recent research on privatisation in Kenya in the first episode of the ‘Public Education Now’ podcast. She explains how international organizations play a key role in shaping education policies that advocate for privatization in education, and how civil society is pushing back against these privatization efforts through joint advocacy and mobilization at both the national and international levels.
‘Public Education Now’ podcast episode one: Who shapes education policy in Kenya? Global agendas, local resistance with Patricia Wandia.
A background to privatization in and of education in Kenya
Structural adjustment programs from the 80s and 90s, which introduced market logic and cost-sharing in the public services sector, continue to shape education policy in Kenya today. Public sector deficits, fiscal consolidation, and wage-bill constrainment under the ongoing International Monetary Fund (IMF) program have created a demand gap that is rapidly being filled by for-profit private actors. The proliferation of private actors, combined with the role of foreign players in shaping education policy, has laid bare the tension between international donor influence, government responsibility, and citizens’ hopes for a better future in Kenya.
In the latest episode of PEHRC’s ‘Public Education Now’ podcast, we are joined by Patricia Wandia, a researcher and a graduate from the Erasmus Mundus Master's for Education Policies for Global Development (GLOBED). Based on her research, she explains the nuances of how these processes are unfolding in Kenya, especially in higher education, and how local stakeholders such as teachers, families, and policymakers are responding to them.
The role of international organizations in driving privatization
International organizations (IOs) like the World Bank have played a historic role in promoting cost-sharing models like Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and student loans, which shift the burden of education financing away from the state and onto individual learners and their families. According to Patricia’s research, the diminished role of the state and citizens' search for a better future has led to a rapid expansion in private universities, some of which offer even lower tuition than public universities.
This new dynamic of the state retreating from its responsibilities and private actors filling the gap can be traced back to donors recommending policies that are heavily driven by neoliberal ideology. As Patricia stresses, “This points towards quite a bit of a divergence between what our local educational needs are and what international priorities are, because there's a stark difference between the two.”
Impact of IO-driven privatisation
Building on the fiscal consolidation and wage-built constraint under the new IMF loan, Patricia highlights how these conditions directly undermine public education by limiting the number of trained teachers in government schools while also having the greatest effect on the most marginalized groups. She stresses how when these people are failed by public institutions, they have no option but to turn to the next best alternative, which might be low-cost private schools like Bridge International Academies (BIA) or community schools, which are often unregulated and offer poor quality education.
Additional research by Education International and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), shows how private actors like BIA make education even more inaccessible for marginalized groups by enforcing placement tests that lead to ‘selection’ and may exclude children with different needs.
Research from The East African Centre for Human Rights (EACHRights), a PEHRC member, from Kenya, also attests to the adverse effects of low-cost private schools on education and communities. Findings from their report ‘Low Cost Private Schools: School Choice for the Poor at the Expense of Quality?’, show that more than two-thirds of parents who send their children to low-cost private schools can barely afford it and often forgo basic necessities to afford it. Additionally, while 90% teachers in public schools are Teachers Service Commission (TSC) certified, 90% of teachers in low-cost private schools are not, yet most of the community views the quality of education in low-fee private schools to be better than public schools.
These examples show the stark differences in what these policies claim to deliver and what they actually end up doing. Patricia states, “I think this says a lot about the sustainability of these policies as well in terms of just their implementation on the ground.”
Local attitudes and advocacy against privatization in Kenya
Despite these concerns around privatization, mobilization efforts by national and international groups leaves cause for hope. Previously, civil society groups within and outside Kenya have successfully advocated for the closure of BIA in the country, and the subsequent divestment of World Bank’s private sector arm, International Finance Corporation (IFC) from BIA. In the same vein, today local groups such as the Elimu Boura group under the Kenya Human Rights Commission, and National Students’ Caucus are pushing back against privatization insisting that education remain a right, not a privilege. Their continued advocacy underlines a crucial choice for Kenya’s future: whether education will be driven by global market logics, or protected as a public good for all?
Extract from the conversation with Patricia:
How can we improve education and deliver more just equitable and sustainable futures, in the Kenyan context and generally as well?
We need to ground our reasoning and our appreciation for what education does and what it's meant to be. It's meant to be a public good. It will continue to function as a market commodity the more we don't push back. If it does that, then we continue to reproduce inequalities, which is the opposite of what we're trying to do.
The first takeaway is to remember that education is best in the hands of the state (the government). Then it's also important to think about the regulatory frameworks around privatization to ensure that there is accountability and transparency, both in public and private institutions.
Secondly, I think the government has an obligation to fulfill its constitutional functions and to protect education for every person who would like to further their education even at a lower level.
For my last takeaway, I think it's important that this distinction between people making policies and those profiting from them is made. At the end of the day, these private institutions have offered choice, they have offered opportunity, but if they're not well regulated and if they're in the hands of people who profit from them, then they're not doing us any good. So I think it's important for that distinction to be made.
Education is not just about access; it's about dignity, it's about relevance, it's about justice. And I think all these dreams or goals we have to make education accessible and affordable, to be of quality, are still possible. We are still a little bit far away, but it can be done.
To learn more about education policy in Kenya and attitudes towards education privatization in the country, you can listen to this full episode, ‘Privatization and the Role of International Actors in Kenya’s Education Policy Landscape’ here.
Author: Rabia Najm Khan
Biography: Rabia is a Fellow at PEHRC and a student in the Erasmus Mundus Master’s program in Education Policies for Global Development (GLOBED). She previously worked with The Citizens Foundation (TCF) in Pakistan as a researcher, focusing on teacher well-being and students’ social-emotional learning in low-resource contexts. Her master’s thesis examines teachers’ experiences in public-private partnership (PPP) schools in Pakistan. She currently hosts PEHRC’s new podcast, ‘Public Education Now’.
Views expressed in this blog are those of the author/s’ alone. Publication on this blog does not represent an endorsement by PEHRC of the opinions expressed.