RightsBase

School fees as low as 875 shillings ($US12) a year is enough to prevent millions of African children getting even a basic education. Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki made the first 8 years of school free in 2003 — including free textbooks — and the response has been tremendous. In that time, school enrolments have risen from 5.9 million kids to 7.6 million, and climbing.

Kibaki, himself of lowly origins who excelled at school, was hailed by former US President Bill Clinton for the millions of lives he would improve by his education policy. Mozambique followed suit, abolishing school fees last year. They are both following the footsteps of Malawi, which was the first to institute free primary education 12 years ago.

In Kibera, the enormous shanty town outside Nairobi made famous by Bill Bryson’s African Diary and the film The Constant Gardener, enrolments at Ayani Primary School have increased by over 60% since fees were abolished. All the students come from homes without water, electricity or sanitation, but a quarter of them are also orphans or otherwise considered ‘especially vulnerable’. The chance to go to school is worth forgoing what income they might earn from child labour. Free schooling makes a critical difference to their present and their future.

Girls outnumber boys at this 25-room school of over 2,000 pupils in Kibera. Education for girls has been shown time and time again to be of immense value to them and their community. Educated girls are less likely to suffer exploitation and sexual harrassment, less likely to contract HIV or other diseases, more likely to delay marriage, with a reduced number of sexual partners and fewer children; they have better life-skills, greater confidence and better job prospects. In short, they live longer, contribute more to their family and community and have a greater chance of enjoying many of their other human rights.

Of course, many of these advantages apply to boys too. Education is indivisible from so many other rights; it is fundamental. We all have a human right to free primary education. This must be the first priority of governments, which are then obliged by international law to introduce free secondary, technical and vocational education progressively, as maximum available resources allow.

In these African countries that have introduced free primary education, staff, classrooms and other facilities have not expanded accordingly. While accessibility and affordability have improved in accordance with human rights requirements, the quality of education will fall without further concerted work to realise this right. To achieve this, the World Declaration on Education for All urges governments to form partnerships with “non-governmental organisations, the private sector, local communities, religious groups and families.”

The World Bank has criticised Malawi, Kenya and Uganda for expanding access to education at the expense of educational quality. Given that we also have a right to an "international order" in which all other rights and freedoms "can be fully realized", we must press the World Bank, the IMF, WTO and other powerful international institutions with influence on how public monies are sourced and spent, to be a part of the solution.

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