EDUCATION IN KENYA

Kenya is comprised of two schools. Primary School is 1st through 8th grade or standard 1-8. High School or Secondary School is Form 1-Form 4. All children are required to go to school but between school fees, uniform costs and supplies it is often too expensive for many families. For this reason you will often find that the students in one class are a wide range of ages. You are not automatically in class one because you are six years old, you start whenever you can afford to start going and you continue from there. One of the volunteers has a 26 year old in her class one and the oldest primary student in the world recently passed away at over 80 yrs old! Many of the schools are overcrowded with over 90 students in a class and not nearly enough books to teach them all. One text book is usually shared between four or five students and their work is copied off of the blackboard into little notebooks or exercise books. One book per subject. Something that I've noticed with this this week is that test taking is difficult. Because copy machines are not available a teacher will have one copy of a test which she will write on the blackboard. Each student will then copy the problems into their notebook, many will copy them wrong or skip questions resulting in lower test scores. Their desks are small and shared between at least four students. Their pencils are mostly nubs with the occasional nub being passed from child to child when someone doesn't have one of their own. Pencil sharpeners and erasers are in even shorter supply and often times will be shared between classrooms.
Students are not the only ones with a supply shortage. Chalk is rare and erasers are even more so. My class is using an old stuffed animal as a blackboard eraser! Teaching tools do not exist in most classrooms and teachers do their best using their blackboard. Despite these difficulties many students seem to thrive. They are eager to learn and are rapt and attentive students. They study hard because many of them know that a good education is the only way to break the cycle of poverty that they live in. Unfortunately most of them will not make it to high school as high school fees can be a small fortune to the average family in the slum and the children will need to begin work in order to help support their families.
Cheryl's is a beacon of light in this otherwise dark situation. Although it is a private school it does not charge its families a fee making a solid education available to the children in the surrounding slums. Parents pay whatever they can which sometimes is barely enough to cover the chalk used in the classrooms. Another way that Cheryl's helps is with their meal program. Every student gets a cup of porridge in the morning and lunch in the afternoon. For some, it will be the only meal that they have for the day. For the children that live there, it is a guarantee that they will be cared for and have an opportunity to go to secondary school and to university beyond. It is a place where their dreams are cultivated and encouraged to grow. Where they are provided for without having to worry about where it will come from. This is done mostly through private donations and sponsorships of individual students.
Cheryl's is not a rich school. On the contrary, it too struggles to provide the necessary supplies and meals for its students. What perhaps makes it different is that its director and staff place the school and students and orphans in the hands of God. Trusting Him for His provision of every need. That is why, I believe, Cheryl's thrives and continues to grow.