Schooling among Nairobi slum residents in the wake of free primary education

Abstract: In the year 2003, the Kenyan government launched a Free Primary Education policy, which propelled a notable increase in the country’s primary school enrolment rates. The country’s capital city of Nairobi, however, lagged behind most of the nation, with an enrolment rate of 62%, compared to a 104% gross enrolment rate country-wide. Connections have been made between Nairobi’s poor enrolment rates and the high proportion of children living in the city’s informal settlements or slums. In this paper, therefore, we use a community case-study approach to examine the experiences of one informal settlement in Nairobi following the implementation of the free primary education policy. Drawing on audio-taped, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with a range of community members and school personnel, and longitudinal and demographic data, the paper thickly describes the aftermath of free primary education in this urban poor context, and the reasons behind the local popularity of cost-incurring, “informal” schools in the slums of Nairobi among a low-income population, despite the introduction of free primary education. Slum-based “informal” primary schools emerge as an underexplored site of creativity in which parents, teachers, and administrators attempt to bridge implementation gaps between educational policy and local realities among the urban poor in Nairobi, Kenya. The paper employs an emic perspective for understanding the dynamics of formal school enrolment among the urban poor, and for exploring informal schools as a potential space of empowerment for slum residents.