American ambassador's remark on education erroneous

By: John Mulaa
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[ Posted On: 2008-05-23 ]

The comment by American ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, that Kenya has the "highest level of education" in Africa has elicited comments mostly laced with skepticism, in some circles. The doubt arises from lack of evidence adduced by the good ambassador to back his assertion.

The next step should be to confirm or disprove the ambassador's thesis by examining the data available.

Begin with an unlikely factoid that may have influenced the ambassador's ranking of Kenya: the number of Kenyan students attending American universities compared to the rest of the continent's 52 independent states. Kenyan students constitute an unusually high proportion of African students here, roughly one in five. Nigeria has a population four times larger than Kenya's, and Ethiopia and Egypt have about double Kenya's population size, yet they do not match Kenya's record. There are by far many more immigrants from the three countries in the United States than they are from Kenya, whose numbers has only been picking up with a substantial inflow of Green Card lottery winners in the past few years.

Assuming that many of these students complete college and return to Kenya, it follows that more Kenyans have American university degrees than, say, nationals of neighbouring countries.

An American educated Kenyan is the kind the American ambassador is likely to run into or interact with, hence his impression of the country's level of education.

Some comparisons

That aside, how does Kenya's education sector compare with the rest of Africa? Actually, pretty well. Kenya is among the 12 sub-Saharan countries that are on track to providing all children with full primary education, and among 19 that have gender parity ratio above 90 per cent. Twenty four per cent of children attend secondary school and about 3 per cent attend higher education.

In terms of inputs, a measure of how much a country is willing to invest in a sector, Kenya fares well compared to many African countries. The country devotes about 30 per cent of the total government expenditure on education; nearly all primary school teachers are trained (98.8) and the primary pupil- teacher ratio is 1: 40. The figures for Cameroon are 9 per cent, 63 per cent and1: 48. Nearer home, Kenya beats Uganda and Rwanda. Uganda devotes less than 20 per cent of total government expenditure on education, about 80 per cent of its primary school teaching force is trained, and primary pupil-teacher ratio is 1:50.

Rwanda devotes about 12 per cent of its budget on education, 82 per cent of its primary school teachers are trained, and the pupil -teacher ratio is 1: 62. Education expenditure figures are unavailable for Tanzania; however the country boasts of 100 per cent trained teachers in primary schools with a pupil-teacher ratio of 1:56.

Comparing apples to apples, Kenya does stack up well. Kenyans however tend to reach for the sky and like to juxtapose themselves against the good performers within the international community. Kenyans also tend be very sensitive about insinuations that the outputs of country's education sector do not compare favourably with the more advanced systems. Some of them fervently believe that the country's education system is second to none. Belief is free.

The one area where Kenya, and much of Africa, lags behind is in higher education. Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest enrollment rates in higher education, less than 5 per cent compared to nearly 10 per cent for South Asia, 17 per cent of East Asia and Pacific, and 28 per cent Latin America and the Caribbean. Enrolment rate for high income countries is close to 70 per cent.

The difference shows up in outputs. The knowledge Economy Index (KEI) that benchmarks performance on aspects of knowledge economy- overall favourability of economic and institutional conditions, education, innovation, and information and communications technology-- places most African countries close to the bottom. Kenya is not excepted although at 2.3 on a scale of 0 to 10 it still ranks higher than most African countries. Most developed countries rank above 8.

Just to give you a flavour, according to official international data, Kenyans did not file for patents in the last decade. Neither did Cameroonians, Mozambicans, Ethiopians, Rwandans or Ugandans. In 2004 alone, Finns filed for 216 patents. Now you understand why Kenyans are fond of Nokia cell phones; they don't make their own.

But this can change. The rapid expansion of the country's higher education sector and the improved quality that should come with time might provide the necessary impetus for innovation that might be plowed back into the economy.

Were that to happen, the ambassador's observation will seem prescient with hindsight.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: John Mulaa is a Researcher and Consultant (World Bank) based in Washington DC. He is also a columnist with the East African Standard. Earlier in his Journalism career, he worked with the Weekly Review (defunct) and the Daily Nation publications in Kenya, as a foreign correspondent.

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