The Status of Female Education in Kenya

This summer, Blue Kitabu is expanding to Kenya, specifically Loita Hills, an area that lacks educational opportunity. The closest school to this village is 15km away. We plan to support the school with a corn mill and other small businesses and once open, the school will provide 50 children with an education which they would otherwise not receive.

Female education is a catalytic tool for promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. Current trends of female primary education in Kenya are progressing towards equality, and the statistics for Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi are extremely similar. Gender equality in primary schooling in Kenya and its neighboring countries is extremely feasible for the future if current trends continue.

According to Joni Seager’s Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, over 95% of girls are enrolled in primary school as of 2005 in Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda. Compared to Central and West Africa, these rates are very high. However, enrollment does not necessarily ensure attendance. In Kenya, the percentage of girls enrolled in primary school who make it to grade five, 85.1%, is greater than for boys, which is 80.9%. Only in Kenya’s poorest areas is there a gender disparity between male and female attendance in primary school. Muhuru Bay, located in Kenya’s poorest province, Nyanza, is an example of an underprivileged area and it has the highest incidence of malaria and HIV infection in the country. Non-profits such as the Women’s Institute for Secondary Education and Research (WISER) are working in areas like Muhuru Bay to provide girls with educational opportunities. UNICEF’s projections to 2015 show the expectation that the primary net attendance rate for girls is predicted to keep rising to 90% in 2015. In Kenya, girls make up 47.6% of high school students, so the ratio of girls to boys in secondary school is almost equal. The rate of survival to the last grade, which has risen to above 75% of all secondary students, is the nearly same for girls and boys.

The school that Blue Kitabu is building in Loita Hills will benefit both female and male students and will further contribute to the encouraging status of female education in Kenya!