Do you know what is’’-Education challenge to a Kenyan child?

Fact of researched by personal experience and one in one discussion of many young youth what their think of the above topic). Life begins from the birth does education start from our birth, as the wise guys said  if you want a tree grow straight as you want you must start straightening it while still young!

Kenyan children have been facing a number of challenges that make it difficult to attain quality education over the years, this is a common phenomenon in the country which requires keen scrutiny so that a long term solution can be inferred, and unfortunately those challenges are of two categories, which are unavoidable( due to current circumstance)  and avoidable challenges.

Poverty is a major threat to quality education in Kenya most of Kenyan and other developing countries with a high dependency ratio situation that simultaneously occur with the source valuable natural resources and low per capitol income. This means that parent are unable to afford quality education to their children such that it leads to lack of school fees hence the students are always out of school to remind their parents of the enormous dept. beside the inadequate capital in form of money does not give room for the capability to purchase the essential educational materials, such as books, pens, uniform, etc. more over inadequacy of food, clothing and quality shelter cause distracted minds and  frustration to the children who in turn find it difficult for them to concentrate fully on their academic work at school due to the struggle by parents to make ends meet, it hard for them to take their children to a good learning institutions, i.e. school where there is enough provision of high quality educational standard library and laboratory, classrooms and skilled teachers, eventually they are taken to the low educational standard schools that aim at average performance.

There more reason such as also ignorance is key main factors that discourage education for the Kenyan children, it is vivid that some Kenyan live in conditions which do not allow them to access vital information, some student therefore have no reason to work hard and perform discreetly in lack of awareness or rather they have no idea of how important education can be to them, others never interact with someone admirable they can emulate as role model or someone to give them challenge that would stir up their attitude toward education , such students, idea of education is quite passive this mostly occurs in the Kenyan remote areas where the day to day activities of the society members do not recognize anything to do with education, those children grow up with a notion that education is not really important and is meant for the people who idle around or are time wasters, you may find that the history of such a society is full of illiteracy, out of ignorance the children cause irreparable harm to educational system in the society and end up illiterate.

Backward culture beliefs also deny the Kenyan children an opportunity to attain a quality education, a perfect example is the practicing of early marriage that are forcefully imposed on the on the latter such practices are a major list down to educational development countrywide since on the other hand they must be adhered to for the fear violating the ancient norms of the society hence end up as semi-illiterate or completely illiterate and living a miserable life. gender discrimination also drugs educational development since the girl-child for example is denied this chance to learn because according to the believes that women are supposed to be house wives so they get married for their kin people to feast on the bride-price.

 Some religious anticipation is also one of many challenges of Kenyan child face and restricts the achievement discreet performance since they contradict the educational anticipations. Some discourage embracing western education while some calls for full time dedication to church activities which overlap the time student are expected to fully dedicate to their educational work in long run they either perform poorly in education or even drop out of school.

Moral decay in our society is a big let down to the educational quality in the country most of Kenyan student and disobedient and they think they are always right thus they look down upon their parents and teachers, they do not head any advice, others are negatively affected by the mass media and fellow peers, they engage in illegal and immoral activities that draw their attention completely away from education,  example  are drug and substance abuse which leads to withdrawal halogenated addiction etc, which do not concur with this educational expectation for sterling performance in exams, others include the irresponsible sexual behaviors, like  fornication, incest, adultery and prostitution's whose side-effects are unwanted pregnancies and contraction of sexually transmitted infections that cause psychological trauma, frustration a sense of gift despair in life suicide abortion and death or they either drop out of school or perform poorly in exams.

Other issues which affect the Kenyan child in education is corruption  and prejudice in our society largely contribute to poor educational standard among the Kenyan children, in case of corrupt leaders who ought to work coordinating with their family and close friends to misuse the learning institutions hence the Kenya child has to endure the pain of using law quality facilities that hinder high academic performance eg the money meant to purchase books, build classes, laboratories or libraries etcetera, prejudice  of the other hand, example, tribalism, make some schools too hostile to be used by some Kenyan for attaining education on account of their original tribes, also some schools administration committee think its school should be used by a specified tribe hence deny others an opportunity to attain quality education.

Dualistic ideology is another major challenge to some part of Kenya for Kenyan child as far as the education is concerned in this situation the society offer alternatives to education such as instead of concentrating on education one may venture into an economic activity early like farming to be able to win their daily bread for the family, such a belief is so materialistic since these people only think about earning a living and since education need long term investment of capital and money and time to be ready to harvest from it young Kenyans drop out of school and go for available that are supported by the community i.e. planting khat plant or tobacco and other quick cash food.

Lack of parental guidance is also a big contributor to the challenges discouraging attains of quality education in Kenya among the Kenyan children, this is sometimes due to being brought up by single parent or incase where parent are so busy that they care least about what the children do or learn from friends and at school.

Beside the rapidly growing Kenyan population, leads to a situation where there are numerous children under this care of two parents who find it difficult to do it hence their children grow up without wise advice from parent on how to concentrate and focus in life, more so education such children perform poorly in education for they lack somebody to show them the way and correct or rebuke in case they go astray.

Furthermore students need to be motivated but in case of De-motivations they do not really perform well, they need compliment and material prizes when they make effort and improve academically, lack of these leads to loss of morale to do extra hard work to perform well in education.

Lastly the average doctrine is also a hindrance to quality education such that children aim to perform well or rather attain a pass in the long run the educational standard are lowered, none of them perform excellently for they endorse the doctrine of if I have passed the expectation then all is well, low level of technologies in Kenya since it is a third world country drags education performance since acquisition of important educational concepts is low and ineffective.

In a nut shell those challenges really have to be dealt with accordingly to improve educational standard i.e. in term of quality and the number of literate Kenyan children at the end of the day.

These are some the main challenge of Kenyan child in education  my biggest dream is create an avenue where we can be able to understand the critical challenges of Kenyan child in education a lot have been done but lot more need to be done yet!

Kindly if you have ideas share with us let us know how we can help few because as we always say as much as we want to make change we can’t change everything at once! Step by step we can improve our education for our children……

You can Support us, and help us achieve our goal in mobilizing and supporting the needy children in education, look for our account in one of our recently post!

(Drafted by Sharon shared with Uncle Ben (student of mass communication in Nairobi)

Thanks for your time and support!!

Always

Uncle Ben (I care! ‘‘Do you?’’)