Quality of Primary Education Inputs in Urban Schools

Evidence From Nairobi

Bibliographic Data

ID9729652
AuthorsMoses Ngware (0000-0002-0508-1773, African Population and Health Research Center, corresponding author), Moses W Ngware (African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, Kenya,), Moses Oketch (0000-0002-9901-6373, African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, Kenya), Alex Ezeh (0000-0002-1309-4697, African Population and Health Research Center), Alex C Ezeh (African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, Kenya)
Year2011
Volume43
Issue1
Pages91-116
Publication date2011-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducation and Urban Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-1245 • E-ISSN: 1552-3535
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0013124510379131
OpenAlexW2129554104
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited21

This article examines the quality of primary school inputs in urban settlements with a view to understand how it sheds light on benchmarks of education quality indicators in Kenya. Data from a school survey that involved 83 primary schools collected in 2005 were used. The data set contains information on school quality characteristics of various types of schools in Nairobi. On the basis of the national benchmarks, the quality of education provided in government schools was shown to be “better” with regard to infrastructure, teacher qualifications, and textbook provision than that provided in all the nongovernment-owned schools. However, nongovernment schools have smaller class sizes and lower pupil—teacher ratio (PTR). The bad news is that government schools have large class sizes and higher PTR and hence low levels of teacher—pupil interaction. Nongovernment schools had poor classroom structures and a higher pupil—textbook ratio, particulary private individually owned schools and community-owned schools. It also emerges that although in the government schools, student learning space is constrained by the class size, the student learning space in nongovernment schools is constrained by the classroom size. Meeting quality benchmarks in primary schooling, therefore, remains a challenge among urban populations

Class (philosophy · Class size · Geography · Government (linguistics · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Political science · Primary education · Pupil · Quality (philosophy · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Computer Science · Global Educational Reforms and Inequalities · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · Psychology · School Choice and Performance