Kenya’s urban slum schools: Why access doesn’t guarantee better learning outcomes

Benta A. Abuya, African Population and Health Research Centre

Access to school is considered to be better for children who live in urban areas than in rural areas in countries such as Kenya. But research shows that this access doesn’t translate into children doing better at school if the setting is an informal settlement. Despite being able to attend school, some children don’t fully enjoy their right to education, because the urban advantage seems to have dwindled in these contexts in recent years.

Some years ago, our team of researchers at the African Population & Health Research Centre in Kenya examined the enrolment patterns in slums and non-slum communities in Nairobi. Our study found that pupils living in non-slum areas had higher rates of primary school completion (92 per cent) than their counterparts in urban informal settlements (76 per cent). And the pupils outside slums were more likely (76 per cent) to go on to secondary school than the pupils in slums were (46 per cent).

This motivated us to design and carry out an intervention called Advancing Learning Outcomes and Transformational Change (ALOT Change). It was a nine-year after-school support programme that ran in three phases:

• Phase 1 from 2013 to 2015
• Phase 2 from 2016 to 2018
• Phase 3 from 2019 to 2022.

The programme consisted of homework support, mentoring in life skills (including relationship skills and responsible decision making), parental counselling and transition subsidies. In phase 2, we added a leadership component and boys to the programme. In phase 3, we added motivational talks, service learning and digital literacy.

Parents were encouraged to support their children and peers to learn from each other. Children were encouraged to think about careers.

ALOT Change aimed to contribute to a better future for boys and girls aged 12-19 in informal settlements. We implemented this intervention in two Nairobi settlements, Korogocho and Viwandani. Korogocho is reported to be more stable but to have worse health and socio-economic outcomes, while Viwandani is more transient, with a youthful, migrant population.

Once the intervention had run its course, we wanted to know whether it had made a positive impact on pupils’ literacy and numeracy scores. We analysed data from 577 pupils at baseline and 392 at endline during phase 3.

Our endline report showed modest improvements in literacy and numeracy, better self-confidence and aspirations, stronger parental involvement, and reduced delinquent behaviour among participants.

We found that the programme was particularly useful for follow-up cohorts who had been engaged in earlier phases.

Generally, the intervention had more impact among boys than girls, for pupils aged 12-13, and among pupils from the least poor households. Numeracy improved more in Korogocho than in Viwandani.

These findings point to some adjustments that could be made to future interventions.

Other Topics To Read

• Education
• Nairobi
• Gender
• nairobi slums
• career guidance
• adolescents
• informal settlements
• Parenting
• Literacy
• Reading
• Numeracy Skills
• Homework
• Mentorship
• service learning
• Kenya’s urban slum schools: Why access doesn’t guarantee better learning outcomes
• Headlines

Evaluation of impact on numeracy and literacy achievement

Our evaluation compared two cohorts of boys and girls. The “follow-up cohort” was followed from primary school (2016-2018) into secondary schools. The “new cohort” started the programme in 2019 and were followed for three years.

The research questions were:

• Did the intervention improve literacy and numeracy scores?
• How did those scores vary?
• Were there any differences between boys and girls?

In our analysis, we chose to look at five groups, defined by their performance in literacy and numeracy tests. We explored the relationships between their performance and the students’ characteristics (age and gender) and household factors (like household head age, availability of reading materials at home, and household size).

Some of the highlights of our findings were that:

• The intervention had a strong impact on numeracy among higher achievers
• Reading at home had a notable benefit for lower and middle achievers
• Girls tended to perform better than boys in literacy
• Boys scored better in numeracy than girls
• The effects of the intervention on literacy and numeracy were sustained one year into secondary school
• Numeracy and literacy scores reduced in older age groups, as in other studies.

The follow-up cohort had been exposed to the intervention for three years (in phase 2) by the time we started assessing their performance. They performed better than the new cohort.

Gender differences in performance were evident at both lower and higher achievement levels. This finding mirrors those of other studies that speak to the need to encourage boys to enjoy reading to improve their reading abilities. But some studies explain this lag in reading by boys to the likelihood that boys are more inclined towards science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, which takes them away from the focus of reading competency.

Recommendations

The study points to the need to pay more attention to boys during the literacy sessions and to girls in the numeracy sessions during the implementation of the intervention programmes.

The reduction in scores at older ages suggests a need to adjust the programme to suit younger and older adolescents.

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Benta A. Abuya, Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research Centre

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.