Set up to Fail: Inadequate Educational Support for Orphans in Central Kenya

Advances in Anthropology

2011. Vol.1, No.1, 1-8

Set up to Fail: Inadequate Educational Support for Orphans in

Central Kenya

Ginger A. Johnson

Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA.

Email: johnson.ginger@gmail.com

Received July 19th, 2011; revised August 15th, 2011;accepted August 23rd, 2011

In response to Kenya’s goal of free and universal primary education for every child by 2015, this paper describes

a few of the obstacles that one of the most visible periphery populations in Kenya, orphaned children, face in at-

tempting to reach this objective. The most frequently cited barriers of children and their caretakers to consistent

school attendance included: inability to pay school fees, lack of a school uniform, difficulty in providing assis-

tance to orphaned children, presence of disease/illness in the family and disruption of education due to political

violence. Conducted in a Kikuyu community in the Kinangop District of Central Kenya following the 2007/2008

presidential election riots, this study utilized multiple regression, logistic regression and MANOVA statistical

tests to determine if families caring for orphaned children of primary school age differed significantly from

families with no orphans in the home. Discriminant function and Mahalanobis testing further revealed differ-

ences in types of households, with the presence of orphans in the home (particularly AIDS orphans) significantly

increasing the amount of school fees owed per family. Qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews

with families and open-ended interviews with their primary school aged children contextualized study results

and inform policy recommendations.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Kenya, Regression Analysis, Primary School, Orphans, Child Agency

Introduction

The road to success through education is continually repeated

to Kenyan children from governmental billboards, radio mes-

sages, parents, church leaders, and teachers. In the agricultural

township of Njabini in Kenya where this research study took

place this message has a desperate undertone—lack of an edu-

cation equals poverty. Educational anthropologists have already

stated that school, as an important vehicle for social reproduce-

tion, is here to stay (Levinson, Borman & Eisenhart, 2000). The

pivotal question to consider now is “What is lost and gained?”

by the adoption of formal schooling (Levinson, Borman &

Eisenhart, 2000). Addressing this question is especially press-

ing when considering the status of vulnerable children in Kenya

who are instilled during childhood with the importance of com-

pleting primary school without the necessary resources to do so.

We must indeed move past the “modernist conceit that school-

ing is unambiguously good for the individu- als and groups that

encounter it” (Hamman, 2002) and focus our attention upon

those least likely to reap the benefits of a ‘formal’ education.

Kenyan children and parents alike internalize messages of

wealth, power, and social status as connected to educational

achievement from an early age in spite of economic and social

constraints which prevent them for achieving these goals

(Nkinyangi, 1982). In Njabini, an agricultural township in the

Central Highlands of Kenya with a population primarily con-

sisting of Kikuyu tribe members, being an “educated person”

means the attainment of at least a primary school certificate of

completion (Levinson & Holland, 1996). Parents and care-

takers in Njabini interpreted the educational success of their

children as the ability to work for themselves rather than as a

hired laborer. And as Levinson et al. (1996) have suggested, the

cultural production of the educated person is intimately tied to

the spaces in which nationalism and citizenship building take

place: schools.

Education in Kenya is based on an 8-4-4 system with 8 years

of primary school followed by 4 years of secondary school and

4 years of university. Kenyan students must pass their Standard

8 exams before acceptance into secondary school (the equiva-

lent of high school in the United States). With the implementa-

tion of Structural Adjustment Programs in Kenya in the 1980’s,

the costs parents and caretakers incurred for their children’s

education expanded significantly (Due, 1991; Reimers, 1994;

Adepoju, 1993). Child-care providers were required to purchase

a school uniform, pay tuition, buy books, school supplies, their

child’s desk and pay for testing materials due to the inability of

the government to afford increased educational costs after gov-

ernment restructuring programs imposed by the World Bank

(Vos et al., 2004). The gap between a wealthy and educated

elite and uneducated impoverished citizens; therefore, contin-

ued to grow.

Parental hope for their child’s future grew in 2003 with the

Kenyan governments announcement of ‘free’ and ‘universal’

primary school by 2015 (Bruns, Mingat & Rakotomalala, 2003).

School attendance rates in primary school skyrocketed in 2004

with an increase (of both boys and girls) up by 104 percent

(Vos et al., 2004) after the government’s educational promise to

its young citizens. But despite increased government expendi-

ture on education at the beginning of the 21st century, primary

school in Kenya is far from free and universal today, especially

for families in poverty (Bruns, Mingat & Rakotomalala, 2003;

Ackers, Migoli & Nzomo, 2001). Lack of teachers in rural vil-

lages and lack of governmental funds for the building of

2 G. A. JOHNSON

schools to meet education demands has redistributed the costs

of education back to child-care providers. When a child passes

from one grade level to the next (for example: from Standard 4

to Standard 5) families incur greater fees through increased

number of tests taken, books needed, and increased teacher

salaries at higher school levels. In Njabini, this created a situa-

tion in which record numbers of children were enrolling in

school yet few were completing their educations beyond Stan-

dard 4 (personal communication with Njabini Primary Head-

master, 2007/2008).

Graduated school fees historically have played an important

role in the control of education by Kenyan officials (Nkinyangi,

1982). This structure still exists in Njabini today with parents

bearing the brunt of expenses associated with school (Ackers,

Migoli & Nzomo, 2001); yet, the importance of attaining a

primary school education was repeated often by parents and

children throughout fieldwork, mostly in conjunction with a list

of economic barriers they must overcome to do so. If children

are fortunate enough to begin their education, the graduated fee

structure of Kenyan primary schools makes it difficult, if not

impossible, to continue through Standard 8 (Bruns, Mingat &

Rakotomalala, 2003).

In addition to large-scale ‘free’ and ‘universal’ government

promises, local processes at work in Njabini are also leading to

lowered primary school completion rates. These factors include

increased burdens on extended family members caring for or-

phaned, abandoned or displaced children due to HIV/AIDS and

political violence. Obstacles faced by orphans, in particular,

attending and completing school are even more challenging.

Orphans are more likely to be living in poverty (Case, Paxson

& Ableidinger, 2002; Ainsworth, Beegle & Koda, 2000; Ains-

worth & Filmer, 2002), move between households (Shetty &

Powell, 2005), experience social stigma, especially if they have

been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (Foster & Williamson, 2000;

Hamra et al., 2005), and less likely to receive financial re-

sources from their households equal to other children (Case,

Paxson & Ableidinger, 2002; Bicego, Rutstein & Johnson,

2002). It is estimated that there are more than 12 million AIDS

orphans currently living in sub-Saharan Africa, with over 1

million of those children living in Kenya (UNAIDS 2007). In

total, 1.1 million children in Kenya have lost one or both par-

ents to AIDS and this number continues to grow every year

(UNAIDS 2007). Given these alarmingly high numbers affect-

ing Kenya today, it is expected that similar educational con-

straints face AIDS orphans elsewhere in Central Kenya as this

region is heavily comprised of rural agricultural townships

similar in size and composition to Njabini.

The Research Setting

Statistics for AIDS orphans currently living in Njabini are

not available; however, of the 54 families caring for primary

school aged children interviewed for this study, 12 were caring

for AIDS orphans. An additional 7 families were caring for

children orphaned for other reasons, including at least one pa-

rental death due to political violence. These numbers are hard to

estimate as three of the female-headed households interviewed

—displaced due to election violence—had not seen their hus-

bands since early 2008 leading to speculation but not confirma-

tion they had died in the political riots of 2007/2008. Kenya’s

history of political violence has led to the disruption or discon-

tinuation of children’s education due to familial displacement

on several occasions.1 The violence that began on December 27,

2007 after President Mwai Kibaki declared himself president

sparked an immediate and violent response from many Kenyans,

particularly from the Rift Valley (Anderson & Lochery 2008;

Horowitz, 2009), the slums of Nairobi and Kisumu (Horowitz,

2009). Specific numbers on how many Kenyans lost their lives

in the aftermath of the violent elections ranges into the thou-

sands while the number of displaced ranges into the hundreds

of thousands (Human Rights Watch, 2008). What is certain is

that the majority of violence was initially against members of

the Kikuyu tribe, the affiliation of the president (Horowitz,

2009) and the majority of those displaced came from the Rift

Valley (Western Kenya) moving toward either Eastern Uganda

or Central Kenya. The location of this research study was in

one township, Njabini, in Central Kenya heavily dominated by

Kikuyu tribe members (Figure 1). Because of its tribal compo-

sition, Njabini has been used frequently as a safe zone by Ki-

kuyu’s displaced from the Rift Valley during past episodes of

presidential electoral violence.

Situated in the Kinangop District of Central Kenya (Figure 2),

the study population lies at the base of the Aberdare Mountain

Range in Njabini Township. Anecdotal data places the current

population at between eight and ten thousand (personal com-

munication with 2009 census taker, 7/14/08). Due to Njabini’s

large Kikuyu population, when political violence erupted in the

Rift Valley in December of 2007 the town was a known refuge

to Kikuyu’s escaping conflict. Within this context, the study

discussed in this paper sought to address the following ques-

tions: What affect has Kenya’s most recent episode of political

violence had upon primary school education? Do families car-

ing for orphaned children of primary school age differ signifi-

cantly than families caring for schoolchildren with no orphans

in the home? If orphan households differ significantly from

non-orphans households, are there distinguishing characteristics

between the type of orphan (i.e. AIDS or displacement) in the

households? What, if any, variables explain the variation of

school fees families with primary school aged children are re-

quired to pay? It is hoped that the answers to these questions

will lead not only to a better research design for continued pro-

jects with families in the Central Highlands of Kenya, but also

toward illuminating the policy implications of Kenya’s failing

educational promises toward its citizens despite increased gov-

ernment rhetoric on the importance of attaining an education.2

The study population included families with at least one pri-

1Kenya has a longhistory of political violence since independence from

Britain in 1963. Although many media outlets in 2008 made reference to the

‘unprecedented’ violence of the 2007 presidential elections, Kenya has

experienced comparable episodes of election related violence and popula-

tion displacement in 1982, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007 (essentially every 5

years when new elections are held). (See wa-Mungai and Gona 2010 for a

thorough accounting of Kenya’s political history and debates regarding its

violent trajectory).

2For more information on the Kenyan governments history of emphasizing

the attainment of primary school education through free services see the

Kenyan African National Union (KANU) manifesto of 1963 and 1969

entitled “What a KANU Government Offers You”; a presidential decree in

December of 1973 entitled “Ten Great Years of Independence”; and more

recently the political platform of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC)

in 2003 in electing current Kenyan president, Mwai Kibaki (Sifuna, 1990;

Muhoho, 1975; MoEST, 2003).

G. A. JOHNSON 3

Figure 1.

Children in Njabini, Kenya (Central Highlands) walk to school. Con-

sisting primarily of Kikuyu tribal members, Njabini was considered a

safe haven for those fleeing election violence in the Rift Valley in 2008.

Photo by G. Johnson.

Figure 2.

Town of Njabini, the research setting for this project, is located at the

base of the Aberdare Mountain range in Central Kenya.

mary school aged child (ages 5 - 16) in the Kinangop District of

Kenya (Njabini township) who gave verbal, informed consent

to participate in the research project. Research participants were

first recruited by attending one of the largest churches in town

to introduce the researcher to the community and discuss the

research project. After an approximately one-hour question/

answer session, four families agreed to participant. The re-

maining 50 families were selected by snowball sampling after

asking current participants, “Do you know of any other families

in Njabini with at least 1 primary school aged child in the

household who may be interested in participating in this re-

search project.” The dominant language of the area is Kikuyu

with use of Swahili frequently and some use of English de-

pending on educational level. Of the 54 families interviewed for

this project, 37 were female-headed households, 15 were dou-

ble headed households (two child-care providers) and 2 were

male headed households which were dropped from analysis due

to their small number. The average number of school children

per household was 3 with 19 out of the 52 families included in

data analysis caring for at least one orphan (36.5%). The most

frequently cited type of orphan was one whose mother, father

or both parents had died from AIDS related complications (n =

12).

Materials & Methods

This project uniquely combined a qualitative ethnographic

methodology with a cross-sectional quantitative questionnaire

survey in an effort to learn more about how locally understood

barriers to education affected the goals of primary school aged

children living in Njabini. Qualitative data collection included

inquiring about the needs of family, needs of children, and food

security while quantitative information focused on income, rent,

school fees, etc. Data was gathered initially through participant

observation and later during one-on-one interviews with fami-

lies, school providers and primary school aged children.

Fifty-four families were interviewed in their home by the au-

thor from May-August 2008 for approximately two hours.

Eight primary school aged children (8 - 16 yrs), all orphans,

from the fifty-four families were also interviewed at school

away from caretakers for approximately one hour. These inter-

views only took place after the children had each had known

the researcher approximately three months. Two families with

single males as the head of the households were dropped from

the analysis as they were not representative of the typical fam-

ily structure in the area. To ensure confidentiality, pseudonyms

are used for all participants. Data was analyzed using NVivo

and PASW Statistics 18. With families being the unit of analy-

sis (n = 52), 14 variables were collected through the question-

naire and statistically analyzed. Those 10 variables reported on

in this paper are discussed in length below: 3

1) HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD—Two households were ana-

lyzed, FHH (female headed households) and DHH (double

headed households). Female-headed households were labeled

as such according to who owned/rented the house, provided

income and cared for children regardless of marital status.

Double headed households were labeled as such due to two

child-care providers owning/renting the house and providing

3Additional variables included in data analysis, yet not discussed in this

paper, include: Extra Teacher (extra teacher refers to whether or notthe

family paid an extra school fee so that their child(ren) would be placed in a

smaller classroom with more interaction with their teacher) (Figure 4); Age

of Children (age of the children in the household were divided into two

categories, below or above the mean average age of children included in the

study which was 9.6 years old); Orphans (if no orphans were living in the

household the family was given a numerical value of “0”, if only 1 or

han

was living in the households it was labeled “1” and if 2 or more or

hans

were living in the household a “2”); and Location of Home (the location o

each home was plotted according to distance from the center of Njabini –

the Nairobi bus stop. Distances were measured in kilometers).

4 G. A. JOHNSON

consistent income and care for the family. All DHH in this

study were married in a non-polygamous relationship.

2) TYPE OF HOUSEHOLD—Type of household refers to

the family structure of monogamous and polygamous families.

All first and second wives interviewed were living in a house

separate from their husbands and were not receiving income

assistance therefore for the purposes of this study they were

classified as FHH.

3) RELATION—Relation references the kind of familial re-

lationship primary school aged children in the household had

with the head of household.

4) TYPE OF ORPHANS—Of the families reporting orphans

living with them a “1” was given if the child was orphaned due

to HIV/AIDS, a “2” was given if the child was abandoned/

orphaned due to displacement/political violence. A “0” was the

label given if a child(ren) were orphaned due to any other cir-

cumstances.

5) CHILDREN – For the purposes of this study, the number

of primary school aged children living in the home were classi-

fied as continuous variables. The number of children in each

home ranged from 1 to 7.

6) INCOME—Income refers to how much money each fam-

ily received on a monthly basis. Income ranged from 0 to

10,000 ksh per month.

7) RENT—Rent refers to how much money each family was

required to pay each month for the use of the rooms they lived

in. Rent ranged from 0 to 1000 ksh per month.

8) SIZE OF HOME—The size of each home was measured

in meters squared.

9) SCHOOL FEES—School fees in Kenya shillings were

based on amount owed at the beginning of each school term (3

school terms per year for each year of primary school). As data

was collected from May-August 2008, parents were asked how

much they were required to pay for Term 1 beginning in Janu-

ary of 2008. School fees included, but was not limited to, tui-

tion, test fees, school supplies (pencils, paper, books), and stu-

dent desk fee (Figures 3 & 5).

10) UNIFORM FEES—Parents were asked how much they

were required to pay for the school uniform their child currently

wore or needed to purchase.

Figure 3.

Several children in Njabini attend primary school at a local orphanage.

Many classroom materials, including writing desks, were donated by

community members to families who could not afford school fees. Photo

by G. Johnson.

Figure 4.

Michael, 11-years-old, spends much of his day at school in a classroom

with 75 students and no teacher. Lack of qualified educators in the area

mean that teachers must divide their time between several crowded

classrooms. Photo by G. Johnson.

Figure 5.

At age 13, Regina is the oldest member of her class. She has been un-

able to continue her education without interruption due to lack of

school fees. When asked what she wanted most for her future Regina

responded, “school fees and new school shoes…that’s all.” Photo by G.

Johnson.

For the purposes of data analysis, variables one through four

were categorized as “dummy” and variables five through ten

are continuous variables. For multiple regression, school fees

was used as the dependent variable and for logistic regression,

orphans was used as the dependent variable. For MANOVA

(multivariate analysis of variance) testing, orphans was used as

the fixed factor with all continuous variables as dependent

variables. Discriminant Function Analysis was performed with

type of household as the grouping variable.

Results

A stepwise multiple regression analysis with school fees as

the dependent variable chose the following explanatory vari-

ables: rent, type of household, type of orphan and relation (Ta-

G. A. JOHNSON 5

ble 1). With an adjusted R square of 53.8%, these variables

explained a significant portion of the variation of school fees in

Njabini township (p = 0.004). The regression equation provided

a baseline for predicting the fluctuations in school fees reported

by families as those caring for AIDS orphans were projected to

pay approximately $1400 ksh more per month than those who

do not. Logistic regression and MANOVA testing confirmed

distinct differences between the orphan and non-orphan house-

hold. Logistic regression (forward method) correctly predicted

94.2% of the time which families were caring for orphans based

on the amount of school fees paid and who was caring for the

child (Table 2). MANOVA and Hotelling’s T squared tests

determined there were significant differences between house-

holds caring for no orphans and households caring for one or-

phan (p = 0.05) and between non-orphan households and

households caring for two or more orphans (p = 0.043). Differ-

ence between households caring for one orphan and two or

more orphans was not significant (p = 0.684).

These findings indicate that not only does the type of house-

hold (as indicators of economic standing) influence families

ability to pay for schooling (Yamano, Jayne and McNeil 2002;

Clark 1984; Due 1991), but also the type of orphan being cared

for and what relationship they have to the child. It is also nota-

ble that differences in school fees families are required to pay

are not significantly differentiated by how many primary school

aged children are in the home, but by the presence or absence

of at least one orphan. Potential implications of why this may

occur are discussed in the following section.

The results of discriminant function analysis with type of

household as the grouping variable revealed several items of

interest with the first two functions explaining 95% of variation.

Function 1 can be explained as a contrast between types of

Table 1.

Results of multiple linear regression.

Unstandardized Standard

Variable Coefficient B Error t Sig. (p)

(Constant) 4885.321 699.951 6.980 0.000

Rent −1.421 0.773 −1.838 0.087

Typ. of House. −39.412 126.987 −0.310 0.761

Type of Orphan −1217.078 338.080 −3.600 0.00

Relation −842.557 203.869 −4.133 0.001

Dependent variable: School fees; Adjusted R square: 53.8%.

Table 2.

Results of logistic regression.

Unstandardized Standard

Variable Coefficient B Error t Sig. (p)

(Constant) −0.498 0.095 −5.238 0.000

Relation 0.374 0.042 8.821 0.000

School Fees 0.000 0.000 5.159 0.000

Dependent variable: Orphans; Percentage correct: 94.2%.

households that emphasize income and size of the home and

Function 2 emphasizes children while deemphasizing school

fees and uniform fees (Table 3). Mahalanobis distance between

first wives and second wives as the head of household was not

significant. Distances between single/widowed women and

married/monogamous households was statistically significant

(p = 0.000) (Table 4).

Discussion & Policy Recommendations

The average reported income for the area per month was

$1853 ksh with families required to pay on average $1253 ksh

in school fees per school term (3 terms per year) and approxi-

mately $800 ksh per school uniform. Several children inter-

viewed for this study could not continue on to Standard 5 due

to increased costs associated with testing fees (i.e. graduated

school fees) after Standard 4. In addition, several families with

young children had to delay entrance to primary school until the

family could save enough money for a school uniform. Re-

search findings were also able to significantly differentiate

between orphan and non-orphan households as it pertains to

educational barriers. Predictors of socioeconomic status (SES)

such as income, rent, size of home and type of household were

expected due to the graduated school fees families in Kenya are

required to pay. And as several previous studies have noted, the

impact that type of household has upon the earning potential of

families can be an important indicator of SES, especially

households headed by single women, widowed women or

co-wives receiving no economic support from their husbands

(Kossoudji and Mueller 1983; Clark 1984; Roth 1991; Farmer

1996; Buvinic and Gupta 1997).

Table 3.

Results of discriminant function.

Variable Function 1 Function 2

Children −0.131 0.805

Income 0.580 0.375

Rent 0.100 0.471

Size of Home 0.674 −0.193

School Fees 0.238 −0.522

Uniform Fees −0.399 −0.842

Grouping variable: Type of household; Cumulative %: 95.0.

Table 4.

Mahalanobis distances in the four types of households (Probabilities

are above the diagonal).

Typ. of House.1st Wife2nd Wife Married Single

First Wife 0 0.124 0.061 0.528

Second Wife 0.124 0 0.058 0.132

Married 0.061 0.058 0 0.000

Single/Widow 0.528 0.132 0.000 0

6 G. A. JOHNSON

What was unexpected was the degree to which the type of

orphan in a household (i.e. AIDS orphan) significantly in-

creased the amount of school fees owed per family. Interviews

with both school officials and families did not reveal differing

fee assessments for families caring for AIDS orphans (as op-

posed to non-orphan or non-AIDS orphan households) that

would account for this difference. However, open-ended inter-

views with four of the eight orphans of sampled families re-

vealed severe discrimination at school from both classmates

and teachers in the form of taunts, teasing and in the case of one

student, repeated physical assault by older students. It is unclear

if this discrimination resulted in higher school fees for orphan

families or why this was not mentioned by any of the families

of the students when questioned. Further inquiry into this area

needs to be undertaken in order to explore the implication of

this finding not only in Njabini but throughout similar commu-

nities in Kenya. The researcher can only speculate that students

did not feel comfortable enough in their home situation to dis-

cuss these events with their families and/or caretakers did not

want to incur any perceived punishments by revealing these

instances during interview sessions.

Nonetheless, there are two definitive conclusions to be drawn

from these findings in order to advance the methodological

sophistication of contemporary anthropologists: 1) the unique

combination of ethnography with interpretative statistical tech-

niques revealed significant questions to direct future studies in

the area, and 2) the inclusion of children’s perspectives on their

school situation and hopes for the future was an extremely im-

portant element of this study’s methodology anthropologists

should not neglect exploring. Children have an important, in-

deed necessary, perspective to provide regarding their current

lives and future possibilities.

Within the study population where AIDS deaths have sig- ni-

ficantly decreased the earning potential of families and in-

creased the number of orphans in need of assistance, the educa-

tional needs of orphans are clearly not being met. However,

study findings reported here indicate that families caring for at

least one orphan experience greater difficulty in paying for

children’s schooling, specifically the AIDS orphan household.

Despite Kenya’s declaration in 2003 that primary school educa-

tion was to be free and universal to all citizens by 2015, this

goal has not nearly been achieved. With an average monthly

income of $24 USD, families analyzed from this study have a

difficult if not impossible task paying the educational fees nec-

essary to keep their children in school full-time. The current

graduated fee structure of Kenyan primary schools makes it

hard for poor families to send their children to school, but even

harder to keep them there. As one mother stated during an in-

terview, “I want my daughter to go to school. She wants to go

to school. But until I can afford to send her back she will con-

tinue to work as a housegirl in Nairobi.” This was a common

theme described by research participants. That is, when chil-

dren’s families could no longer afford to keep them in school,

they would often engage in wage-earning labor in urban loca-

tions such as Nairobi in order to be provided with food and

shelter.

In addition to surprising results regarding families caring for

orphans, study findings from discriminate function analysis

suggest that economic factors alone cannot account for the total

variation of school fees Njabini families are required to pay. As

the number of children in a family increases the amount of

money spent on school fees decreases indicating that if families

cannot afford to send all their children to school, they concen-

trate financial resources upon their oldest child’s education

(Table 3). This requires younger siblings to delay their educa-

tion or suspend it entirely. Qualitative data gained from inter-

viewing family members supports this conclusion.

While multiple regression analysis was able to explain a sig-

nificant portion of the variation of data (53.8%), this number

could potentially be improved with the addition of attendance

and dropout statistics from the families analyzed. Due to the

recent arrival of many children to schools in Njabini township

from their homes in the Rift Valley, long-term schooling data

could not be obtained for all study participants. However, re-

search findings presented here provide much needed baseline

data for continued educational studies of the area.

If Kenya is to meet its universal primary educational goals

by 2015, then it must take into consideration not only the eco-

nomic challenges families face, but also the myriad other fac-

tors preventing children, especially orphans, from their educa-

tional goals. By heavily emphasizing the importance of an edu-

cation without providing its citizens universal access, many

Kenyan children are being set up to fail. When children were

asked during familial and one-on-one interviews what they

wanted most for their future, the immediate response from all

but five4 of the 87 respondents referenced a school uniform or

school fees—two major obstacles to overcome in beginning

and continuing an education. Perhaps the most surprising sta-

tistic, however; is that when prompted what else they needed

aside from educational materials, 62 of the children were un-

able to think of a response or simply stated “ni uguo” (that’s all)

(Figure 5). Completing primary school was such an all-en-

compassing goal for so many of the children interviewed they

were unable to verbalize wishes or desires outside of an educa-

tional context. This is in an area where families live on less

than a dollar a day and food insecurity is a constant worry to

many caretakers.5

The Kenyan government’s failure to address crushing pov-

erty, alarmingly high unemployment rates and unwillingness to

invest in ‘free and universal’ education beyond the level of lip

service render the country vulnerable to future instability as

proved during the most recent electoral period. Educational

anthropologists in particular need to critically analyze the

power structures of formal education in the context of disease,

poverty and violence that millions of Kenyan children cope

with everyday—and must overcome everyday in order to

achieve the education their government assures them is within

their grasp. This paper provided a brief case study on orphans,

one of the most vulnerable groups in Kenya recognizable

throughout a range of interdisciplinary literature on sub-Saha-

ran Africa, because their current bleak educational future pro-

vides the most powerful counterargument to the Kenyan gov-

ernment’s proud proclamations of free education. Given that

the number of orphans will only rise as the HIV/AIDS crisis

continues and unstable politics are likely to reign with presi-

4Four of the children referenced agricultural supplies (seeds, manure, etc.)

for their families garden and one child wished for a bicycle to shorten the

commute to school.

5Thirty-nine families reported eating only one meal a day and/or eating

smaller portions than desired for each meal in fear they would not have

enough for everyone in the family.

G. A. JOHNSON 7

dential elections set for 2012, when will we begin to seriously

discuss the future of these children in their current education

system? As stated in the beginning of this paper, it is hoped that

attempts to answer these questions will lead not only to better

research designs for continued projects with families in Kenya,

but also toward illuminating the policy implications of Kenya’s

failing educational promises toward its youngest citizens. What

a child looses in an unsuccessful attempt to gain a formal edu-

cation may be too high a price to pay.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr. Rebecca Zarger for her

valuable insight during the course of this research, Dr. Lorena

Madrigal for comments made to earlier drafts of this manu-

script and anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful remarks to

help improve this article. In addition, the author would like to

acknowledge the support of Tito Nganga and the entire Flying

Kites Kenya team for their contribution to this research.

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