- May 27, 2021
- Posted by: Dream_liner
- Categories: News, Policy Engagement
On 3rd March 2021, a team of three KU-WEE Hub members paid a courtesy call to the Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) at the State Department for Basic Education, Ministry of Education (MoE), Hon. Dr. Sara Ruto. The purpose of the courtesy call was to inform and invite the Ministry of Education to support and participate in the research project on Gendered Impacts of the Kenyan Government Policy Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic. As the main policy stakeholder in education the CAS informed the team that the school calendar was disrupted by the presidential directive on schools closure and was likely to draw back the government gains on constitutional promise of “No child will be left behind and 100% transition from Primary to Secondary School.” She pointed specifically to four frameworks that inform the 100% transition policy: Kenya Constitution 2010, Vision 2030, Sustainable Development Goals and the East Africa Protocols. The CAS proposed that evaluating the various policies in the MoE to assess whether they are geared towards fulfilling the four frameworks given the likely draw back due to Covid-19 Pandemic response, will go a long way to supporting the ministry formulate supportive measures as the schools return to normalcy. Some of the concerns of the ministry is to analyze the promises in reference to: What is working? What is not working? What are the gaps? How have the policies been translated? She also informed the team that in the Month of January 2021 the Principals and Headteachers of schools collected a lot of data as the ministry had required them to file in daily reports when the schools reopened following the closure since March 2020. The data was on the learners including the circumstance hindering their reporting back to school (pregnant, injured, sick, any needs etc) and the trend. The data is however lying somewhere unutilized and unanalysed. She proposed that it would be of great importance to analyse this data and tell the story behind it. The entry of Kenyatta University with the research on gendered Covid-19 response was therefore timely and the ministry will wholly support the research activities through the policy directorate.
Figure 5: Figure 6: The Chief Administration Secretary, State Department for Basic Education, Hon Dr Sara Ruto (2nd right) and three KU-WEE Hub members at her office
Figure 6: KU Hub Leader Prof Judith Waudo (3rd left) lead a KU team to visit Mr. David Watene, Deputy Director High Education, Ministry of Education
The Ministry is already represented at the level of the KU-WEE Hub Board where the Deputy Director for Higher Education, Mr. David Watene is a member. KU-WEE Hub team of 5 had earlier, on 16th December 2020 made a courtesy call to Mr. Watene. During the courtesy call Mr. Watene promised to liaise with his counterparts in MoE to get all the relevant data that will be needed to conduct extensive research into education policies and programmes in Kenya aimed at improving equality and empowerment of girls and women in Kenya.
