Key Highlights

• Coronavirus has exposed a big internet inequality among Kenya’s schools since the first case of the virus was recorded in the country
• The government resorted to providing learners with educational materials through conducting learning programs through radios and televisions, conducting E-learning, and rolling out community-based learning (CBL).
• The disparity is a result of the least preparedness by public schools to support digital learning not only during this time of the pandemic but also when schools were on.
• I pray that the government addresses issues of education disparities through education policies, strategies, and intervention procedures that ensure equal access and distribution of educational materials to all deserving learners.

Coronavirus has exposed a big internet inequality among Kenya’s schools since the first case of the virus was recorded in the country. The pandemic led to the closure of learning institutions as a way of controlling the spread of the virus from spreading across the country and a way of keeping learners safe. Since then, the government and private sectors have tried to put various methods in place to see that learning continues while learners are at home as a way of keeping them busy during this pandemic.

Among the methods which the government is using to provide learners with educational materials include conducting learning programs through radios and televisions, conducting E-learning, and rolling out community-based learning (CBL). All these programs have not been successful as not all learners can access them due to their geographical location. The situation is worsened by the income inequalities that are deeply rooted in Kenyan communities. Most learners come from lower-income families and thus the economic status of their families is a major barrier to access to these educational materials. Worse off, these affected learners are those from public schools that lack learning materials to conduct the E-learning program.

The latest government plan to roll out community-based learning (CBL) has also been challenged at the court that has seen its implementation stopped till the case is determined. Like other strategies, CBL has turned to be counterproductive. The strategy has seen most learners from public schools go untaught as a private school continues to conduct online lessons for their learners thus leading to a disparity between private and public schools in the country.

The disparity in access to educational resources is a result of the least preparedness by public schools to support digital learning not only during this time of the pandemic but also when schools were on. The explanation behind this unfortunate reality is that most of the public schools do not have electricity supply to aid the use of computers during the learning process and the high cost of installing the computers. Similarly, home learning awareness varies from region to region with some regions both parents and learners not aware of the program due to inadequate information.

Derick Ouma, a pupil at Nyamilu Primary School, Uriri Kenya struggles to listen to educational programs on Radio Ramogi from his rural home in Uriri.

The inequality in access to educational resources is also a result of the high cost of accessing digital learning by most of the learners from public schools whose parents cannot afford the high cost of digital learning during these hard economic times. Perhaps this phenomenon is attributed to the fact that most learners in public schools come from poor families where the parents can not only afford the high cost of digital learning but some of them do not even have smartphones that their children can use to access digital lessons. Thus at the moment, their parents cannot bear the extra cost of learning and at the same time straggling to put food on the table for the family. Such parents have now turned to other activities to keep their children busy while still at home.

With these challenges, most public schools have remained behind in syllabus coverage as they cannot assemble their learners to continue with learning. Rather, they now wait for the day the government will open schools for them to continue with the learning from where they have left.

As a teacher, I pray that the government addresses issues of education disparities through education policies, strategies, and intervention procedures that ensure equal access and distribution of educational materials to all deserving learners.

(Author) Victor Otieno Onyango,

BOM Teacher, Isibania Boys' High SChool

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