The publicness of low-fee private schools in secondary education in Kenya: their roles in education inequality

ケニア　ノ　チュウトウ　キョウイク　ニ　オケル　テイガクヒ　シリツコウ　ノ　コウキョウセイ　キョウイク　カクサ　ニ　ハタス　ヤクワリ

オガワ, ミク

Ogawa, Miku

オオサカ　ダイガク　ニンゲン　カガク　ケンキュウカ　フゾク　ミライ　キョウソウ　センター

学校教育

公教育

アフリカ

オルタナティブスクール

Low-fee private school

low-cost private school

public education

Africa

SDGs

Research Article

論文

In 2018, Kenya introduced the Free Secondary Education Policy for public schools. The author visited four low-fee private schools in rural areas in 2018 and 2019 to investigate their management practices and students' motivations for choosing these private schools. This paper is based on Ogawa (2021), examined the role of low-cost private schools in secondary education, and considers the publicness of private schools in addressing educational inequalities. The findings of the field work showed that all the schools had experienced instability due to low enrolment, particularly after the policy was implemented in 2018. The decline in the schools’ income also affected the quality of education. However, the results suggest that some students prefer to complete their education at private schools as low-expense-boarders, or as beneficiaries of fee discounts. Other students choose private schools to avoid overcrowded classrooms, travel far and especially when they are excluded from public schools. Public schools are supposed to be the least expensive and the most open to all. However, there were certain students with special needs who could not benefit from this, and these went to private schools. This study argues that despite limited learning resources, private secondary schools in rural Kenya have an important place in the public education system outside of the academic pyramid of public schools. This study concludes that private schools did not simply increase inequality, but had the potential to have publicness and to achieve equity by providing a variety of educational opportunities for various individuals.