There is a worrying sharp imbalance in the education sector, where the former national schools face severe congestion with oversized streams, while the lower category, mostly sub-county and rural day institutions, have chronic under-enrolment. It ends up being wasteful, as school facilities get underutilised.
This is what has been described as the great education divide: Congestion in the top schools, while the majority of the public institutions are underutilised. The top-tier schools are, of course, also better resourced, and their students have more subject options.
A new survey has found that Cluster 1 senior schools have more than seven times the number of learners per class than those in Cluster 4. They also have an average of 60 learners per stream against 43 for the latter. Of course, they are preferred by the students because they offer a wider range of subjects and categories, giving learners more chances of choosing the best pathways.
The Cluster 4 learners are more likely to drop out of school. Though these schools do not attract many of the top learners, they have many teachers and subordinate staff who just idle away. It thus makes a lot of sense for the education authorities to consider merging some and providing a few with adequate resources to rival the top schools.
Of course, many students hope to join the top schools, as they stand a better chance of excelling in examinations. These institutions have better facilities, including classrooms, dormitories, and laboratories, and provide better health services and safety. According to the survey, the students in Cluster 1 schools are eight times more likely to attain a mean C+ grade and above in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination than their counterparts in the C4 cluster.
The Ministry of Education should go ahead and merge the unviable institutions with low student numbers to optimise resource distribution.
Follow our WhatsApp channel for breaking news updates and more stories like this.