Equity in Access to Secondary Education in Kenya

Abstract

The Constitution promulgated on August 27, 2010 divides the territory of Kenya into administrative units called counties as it did away with the provinces. One of the objectives of such devolution is to promote social and economic development as well as the provision of proximate and easily accessible services, including education, throughout the country. Among others, the Constitution holds that every child has the right to free and compulsory basic education. However, historically, there has been uneven distribution of schools right from the pre-colonial, colonial period up to now. This disparity in the distribution of schools in regions has far reaching implications not only with regard to  equity in access,  but also quality that depended highly on the type of school, especially at the secondary level. This scenario is strikingly similar to the defunct provinces where a number of them had fewer and poorly equipped secondary schools as compared to their share of the population. Thus there is a daunting task in the planning of education in the country’s 47 counties. The purpose of this paper therefore, is to critically examine the provision of secondary education in Kenya,  with specific reference to equity in access, in the wake of the devolved county units as well as explore the prospects in a bid  to facilitate its successful implementation. During the critical examination, the distribution of secondary schools in general, and the national ones in particular,  in the country is discussed in a historical perspective. Particularly, this approach will  assist not only in bringing out the stark disparities in the provision of secondary education in the country, but also help in formulating policy suggestions to attempt and surmount the attendant challenges.

Key words:  Access, County, Equity, Secondary Education.