NON-FORMAL EDUCATION: THE MISSING LINK IN THE ELIMINATION OF WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOUR IN KENYA

1. NON-FORMAL EDUCATION: THE MISSING LINK IN THE ELIMINATION OF WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOUR IN KENYA Presentation By Kiura Bernard, ILO/IPEC Kenya Presented at the International Conference on Child Labour and Child Exploitation CAIRNS Convention Center, Australia 3 – 5 August 2008

2. Presentation outline • Background: Education & Child Labour • Education: Key challenges • NFE: Weaknesses that curtail elimination of child labour • Recommendations • Case study of a REAL NFE in Kenya

3. Focus: • Mureithi (not real name), 13 years old, is among 3000 plus children working in Dandora dumpsite in Nairobi, Kenya. Living alone in a rented room in the Dandora slum, Mureithi desires to go to school but has to choose between education and work. With no flexible school programme to accommodate his work schedule, Mureithi chooses to work in order to eke out a living. ‘I don’t work I don’t survive in Nairobi’, he sums up his story. For him, there is no privilege of choice between school and work • Children in or vulnerable to being pushed into worst forms of child labour • Over age learners who are in CL or vulnerable to dropping out of school. What alternative for them

4. Education: The Right Response • Nearly 1 million children out of school despite introduction of FPE in 2003 (KNBS 2007) • Great improvement in primary school enrolment (GER 104% in 2004 compared to 69% in 2001) • Increased primary to secondary transition rate (70%) • Incidence of child labour reduced from 1.9 million in 1998/99 to 950,000 in 2005/06 • Changing face of C.L in Kenya

5. Education: The Right Response • 1948 UN UDHR stipulated that basic education is a fundamental human right. The declaration called for primary education to be both compulsory and free. Declaration founded base for UBE as a right. • 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education • 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Civil and Political Rights • 1973 ILO Minimum Age Convention, • 1979 CEDAW • 1989 Convention on TVE, • 1989 CRC • 1999 ILO WFCL • All underscored the sanctity of the right to basic education

6. Education: The Right Response • Experience has shown that efforts to achieve Education for All (EFA) and the progressive elimination of child labour are inextricably linked • The preamble of Convention No. 182 calls for action that takes into account the importance of free basic education and recognizes that the long-term solution to ending child labour will involve universal education • Weiner has shown that compulsory education effectively stopped child labour in the industrialized countries, e.g. in Britain, the participation of 10-14 year olds in the labour market fell drastically after the introduction of compulsory education. • school attendance may be easier to enforce than minimum age laws.

7. Education Challenges in SSA • The challenge of investing education as a means of eliminating CL in SSA is the education systems. • At independence, huge investment in education programs. This declined in the 1970’s/80’s/90’s due to under-funding, SAPs/cost sharing, household poverty • High drop outs, low enrolment/retention high unemployment reflection of education not responding to market demands/failed system • Call for alternative delivery channels emerged • In 2000, the Dakar Forum owned up; said formal education channel alone was in itself a limitation to the achievement of the EFA goals, advocated for the “the third channel” i.e. informal and non-formal education delivery models.

8. NFE/NFS concept for this paper • NFE is any intentional and systematic educational enterprise (usually outside of traditional schooling) in which content is adapted to the unique needs of the students (or unique situations) in order to maximize learning and minimize other elements which often occupy formal schooling (Kleis et.al definition)

9. Birth of NFE/NFS • NFS emerged in Kenya as a response to failed formal system. E.g. in Nairobi there are 200 government primary schools compared to 1500 NFS. NFS responding to access challenge • In Kenya they replicated the formal education in non-formal set up: same curriculum, pedagogy, admin requirements (uniforms, teaching/learning materials etc) • Unlike Uganda (COPE) and Tanzania (COBET), NFS in Kenya initiated by entrepreneurs, civil society, faith based institutions • Legislation of NFS in Kenya is amorphous

10. Failure of NFE in addressing CL • Curriculum: Inflexible formal school curriculum. Children remain in school whole day (remedial lessons on weekend) • Fees: Must charge fee to remain operational/make profit for owners • Quality: Have untrained, underpaid teachers, managed by non-educationalists, lack basic teaching/learning materials • Quality assurance: No supervision by professionals, teachers don’t attend in-service courses • Uniforms: Children must be in uniform • No certification by KNEC (exam council)

11. Failure of NFE in addressing CL • No policy to regulate registration, operation of NFS • Curriculum only developed in 2007, most NFS are not using it (will not serve owners interest) • So who goes to NFS? Children of the “Elite” in the informal settlements, not Mureithis of Kenya • Needy, the very vulnerable children locked out of both formal and non-formal education, hence remain in C.L, with no hope of going back to school. These are the 1M out of school and in WFCL

13. Recommendations • Affirmative action to reach educationally excluded children, especially girls, slum dwellers and marginal communities • Kenya must clearly define NFE, stick to it and invest in it • Recognize & replicate other good NFE practices, e.g. UNDUGU UBEP • Invest in NFE • Certification of NFE graduates, entry and re-entry plan • Have NFE policy in place • Actualize the NFE curriculum • Mainstream elimination of CL in Edn progs • Build capacity of NFE providers

14. EG OF A REAL NFE Program The Undugu Society of Kenya (USK) an NGO founded in 1973 by the late Father Arnold Grol. He wanted to help street children, commonly referred to as chokola, a Swahili word denoting scavengers. The street children problem emerged in the early 1970s, was the result of rural-urban migration and the growth of slum settlements in Nairobi. Depending on tips from motorists, the boys earned out miserable subsistence income from begging or stealing. At night, they would retreat to their shacks in the slums or simply huddle outside the cold pavements. Father Grol spent time on the streets talking to the boys. Gradually they explained the circumstances which brought them onto the streets: poor backgrounds, inability of their parents to afford education or even to provide basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter. On the streets, they said, they could make some money and buy food. Still, they yearned for care and protection like other children of their age.

15. USK Education and Training Program comprises the Undugu Basic Education Program (UBEP). UBEP caters for children living on the streets or in slum dwellings who are unable to pursue formal education. The three-year program, followed by a year of learning basic technical skills, offers basic literacy and numeracy skills to learners, and runs parallel to formal primary schools. Under UBEP, a calendar year is a phase; learners go through three phases. Basic skills are learnt during the fourth year. Phase 1 is equivalent to Grades 1–4 in formal primary school, and Phases 2 and 3 to Grades 5–6 and 7–8. Carpentry and joinery, sheet metal work and tailoring are examples of the skills taught. The core subjects are Languages, Mathematics, Business Education, Religious education, Social Studies, and Art and Crafts. UBEP learners receive hot meals and are not required to wear school uniform. The age of admission into these special schools is 12 years and over. UBEP is a unique intervention, which has boosted support for NFE in Kenya. The government now recognizes and supports this form of education as one of the ways of reaching the nearly one million school-age children who currently do not attend school.

16. UBEP graduates usually require further skills training. The Informal Skills Training Program is an apprenticeship training program which also prepares young people for life beyond USK and helps them handle circumstances they may encounter in adulthood. UBEP Graduates are priority candidates for USK Skills Training Program. Recruitment takes place through the UBEP schools and social workers from the area program. Trainees are apprenticed to practicing artisans for five days a week for practical lessons, and attend a theory class every Saturday for one year. Trainees also prepare for the Government Trade Test examinations. Common trades taught on the skills training program are motor mechanics, carpentry and joinery, tailoring, sheet metalwork and hairdressing.

17. THE END. ASANTE SANA!