We do need more education
Kenya is well known for its wild and wonderful safari parks and here are some of the great country's unsung heroes
Herds of galloping gazelles have captured the imaginations of visitors to Kenya for absolute decades.
However, despite Kenya's worldwide reputation as a safari destination, magnificent coastlines and stunning scenery, like many other African countries, it also suffers from overpopulation and lack of funding in many sectors.
Swamped schools
Prior to independence, primary education was almost exclusively the responsibility of the communities concerned or non governmental organisations such as local church groups resulting in the majority of poor Kenyans not getting beyond primary school.
Since gaining independence in 1963, the Kenyan Government promised free primary education for the people, but this promise did not come into effect until 2003 — 40 years later. For many children, the government's free primary school policy has been a blessing, and since it was announced millions of pupils have swamped the schools, each seeking out their chance to become something better.
Unfortunately, the policy has been done on the cheap, with no money for new teachers or classrooms, resulting in children not getting the right amount of attention due to the overcrowding of classrooms.
Poverty cycle
However, the goal of getting all primary age children into school is still some way off and around 750,000 children still remain out of school, mostly in arid and semi-arid areas and the urban slums.
While the basic literacy and numeracy skills learnt at primary school are immensely important they are not enough to guarantee a reasonable living, and are certainly not sufficient to enable young rural Kenyans to break out of the poverty cycle and to find employment beyond what their parents could find.
Falling apart
While on a recent visit to Kenya I visited a couple of schools outside of the capital city of Nairobi, where the children's uniforms were an assortment of tattered shirts, jumpers and shoes that were falling apart. A skipping rope, an old football and a bicycle tyre kept about 100 children occupied in a dusty playground.
