Link To Article:https://nation.africa/kenya/news/education/thousands-of-learners-fail-to-report-back-as-schools-open-3247308
Analysis: Thousands of Kenyan students have failed to report back to school yesterday, resulting in raising fears of mass dropouts across the country.
Reasons for future female dropouts, the most affected demographic, are linked to both marriages and pregnancies, which may have occurred during the time they were out of school.
Many other students aren’t returning to school because of employment in farms, quarries, boda boda trade, and hawking in some towns. Some parents have also delayed taking their children back to school because they lost their livelihoods through job losses and failed businesses.
In the North Rift region, some students did not report back due to insecurities, teen pregnancies, early marriages, initiation rites, floods, and fears of contracting Covid-19.
Central Primary in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu recorded 70 percent attendance on the first day of the second term, estimating only 800 out of 1200 students reported back. Robert Kamau, a senior teacher at the school stated, “We have about 85 percent of standard eight learners who reported. We don’t know where the rest are. We fear that some might have given birth, some parents lost jobs, and some moved to rural areas, and some of the learners have not traveled back”.
The Kenyan school system does not have the same industrial and financial opportunities that American students have grown accustomed to. For Kenyan students the 2020 school year was effectively canceled, with hopes that the 2021 school year will be more promising. Further time spent away from the classroom may stunt students emotional and educational development. Kenya may also face economic and developmental consequences down the road if this generation of students remains uneducated. Education is one of the most effective means of economic mobility and is critical for the long term success of both the individual and the country as a whole.
Kenya is located within Sub Saharan Africa, a Geopolitical Realm called a shatterbelt. Sub Saharan Africa, Kenya, sits within a shatterbelt because it is a region that is both deeply divided internally and caught up in the competition between great powers of geostrategic realms. Shatterbelts are regions that lack cohesive unity. States also have shared geopolitical features and are hierarchically ranked within their level of power and geographic region. Because Kenya isn’t a global, regional, or cultural power it can be characterized as a Bandwagon state. These states align with Global and Regional powers due to their own lack of influence.