Achieving Universal Primary Education: Can Kenya Afford it?

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http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1160&context=econ_wpapers&sei-redir=1#search=%22affordable+primary+education%22

Primary school enrolment in Kenya has been declining since early 1990s despite high levels of expenditure on education.

The Kenyan government introduced free primary education in 2003. The country, however, is far from achieving universal primary education. Resource allocation within the education sector seems ineffective as the increasing expenditure on education goes to recurrent expenditure. Kenya’s poverty reduction and economic recovery policies outline targets to reach universal primary education by 2015. The authors use Budget Negotiation Framework (BNF) to analyze cost effective ways of resource allocation in the primary education sector. Results indicate that:

• Universal primary education by 2015 is a feasible target for Kenya;
• Kenya could realize higher enrolment rates with a more cost- effective spending of education resources than what has been achieved with free primary education.
• Educational resources could be more effectively spent on increasing number of trained teachers, enhancing textbook supplies and subsidizing the poor.