John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series AFRICAN HABITATS : FOREST, GRASSLAND AND SLUM Studies of the Maasai, the Luhya, and Nairobi's Urban Fringe |
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John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series AFRICAN HABITATS : FOREST, GRASSLAND AND SLUM Studies of the Maasai, the Luhya, and Nairobi's Urban Fringe |
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| 587. These children are of an age when they should be in school but cannot attend because their parents cannot afford to send them. The government, in theory, provides free primary education in that it pays the salaries of those who teach in formal public schools: but parents must still provide their children with a school uniform, books, and other materials: and this places schooling beyond the reach of many families here. A third of the children of school age in Kibera do not attend school, and 70% of those who do attend receive their instruction in informal schools and community centres. |
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| 588. In addition, there is a shortage of qualified teachers so that in settlements like Kibera a host of informal schools have been established by the community itself, using unqualified teachers whose salaries, however limited, must be provided by the parents of the children who attend: as must all other expenses. (Community school on the outskirts of Kibera, with a bathroom and toilet on the right.) |
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| 589. Children who miss out on a year or two have difficulty catching up as schools are reluctant to take them back: and a number of the older ones (girls especially) who have moved here with their parents from rural areas have no time for school since they must work. Girls of 9 or 10 are employed as house-maids and nannies, cooking, cleaning and caring for the younger children of families living in wealthy suburbs. |
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| 590. Ngong Forest Primary School, to which Samuel Mwangi walked daily ... 5 kilometres each way ... is just outside Kibera. Sam left home at 5.30am as he was expected to be in class by 6.30 am for what is termed "tuition", though there will be no tutors present. Children simply look at their books, those who can read (and Sam could not), till their teacher starts work officially at 8.00am. Those children whose parents have paid for a school lunch have a break in the middle of the day: but those like Sam who cannot afford to eat then are kept in class (doing nothing). |
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| 591.Teaching ends at 4.30, after which there is another hour of private study followed by an hour of football practice. |
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| 592. On the way home Sam may have time for extra practice on
a vacant lot, but he’ll be home shortly after 7.00pm. He would then be
expected to do homework.
For breakfast Sam would have been given a cup of black tea and pieces of bread. And his meal at night would likely be ugali and skuma-wiki (kale and spinach), and sometimes beans and corn. |
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| 593. Samuel's Year 7 teacher and some classmates. Instruction is supposed to be in English but Samuel could only speak Swahili when he came to Australia, and could not read or write in any language. The teachers here ... employed by the Nairobi City Council ... are paid very little and only intermittently. (They sometimes have to survive for months at a time, waiting for a long overdue pay cheque! ) Schools are also poorly equipped and teacher motivation is low. As a result few students are keen to learn. And some are too hungry to pay attention. |
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| 594. Teachers actually hire themselves out to make ends meet. The children of parents who can afford to pay them to work outside regular hours receive extra coaching in the evenings, over weekends and during school holidays: but few children from Kibera are that lucky. |
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| 595. Samuel's former classroom. With 8 year levels and three streams in each there should be 24 classes in Sam's school, each with 30 or so students: but there only 13 teachers so classes have to combined. In Sam's "class", as a result, there are 52 children. Since his family cannot afford to pay for tuition the teacher's only interaction with Sam is to write lessons on the blackboard and hope he somehow understands what is written down. Explanations and help are only given to fee-paying students -- which explains why Sam was illiterate when he arrived in Australia. |
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| 596. The benches are made locally and typically seat four children, two on each side. The lucky ones get to rest their backs against the wall. Sometimes children will be admitted to the school but their parents told that there is no bench for them: and they must buy one if they want their child educated. It is likely to cost 500 shillings ($7 Australian) which does not sound like a lot till you take income levels into account. A family here will typically earn between them (and have to survive on) between three and four thousand shillings a month from odd jobs and a stall in the market. (Anyone who does better than that in the market is likely to have a rival competitor set up shop next door!) |
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| 597. At the time the photo was taken the children were discussing the problems Samuel would face in adjusting to life in Australia. The key concept, written on the blackboard, was "Culture Shock": but they could not have imagined how different his life would be. |
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| 598. Photo of Sam in class in Murwillumbah. The classroom at the school Sam attended in Australia has individual desks, a TV and power-point projector, and an attached computer room. When Sam arrived he spoke Swahili, not English, and could not read or write in any language. When he left he could speak, read and write in English! And a man who had lived in Africa before retiring to the Tweed Shire taught him to read and write in Swahili also! |
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| 599. In Kibera the girls sat on the other side of the classroom. Their elaborate hairdos will be the work of their mother or an older sister. The empty seat in the foreground points to the problems faced by girls at puberty. When they have their monthly periods they stay at home, since the school is not user-friendly and is not equipped to meet their needs then. Nor are their teachers able to provide the necessary counseling and emotional support required when girls are confronted with the challenge of womanhood. The intermittent attendance patterns that this causes are a significant obstacle in the way of girls in poor areas getting a decent education. |
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