HCD Country Case Studies

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Browsing HCD Country Case Studies by Author "Kamau, Paul"

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    Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on School Attendance in Kenya
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-08-05) Oleche, Martine; Muriithi, Moses; Kamau, Paul; Njoka, John; Ngigi, Samuel
    Shocks, whether idiosyncratic or covariate, have been common in many parts of the world and are a development challenge. Shocks ordinarily manifest themselves in many forms, and they affect households and sectors differently depending on the nature and the status in which a household finds itself in when it strikes. Theoretically, shocks of any nature adversely affect human capital development in a country. The COVID-19 pandemic was one of the most recent and severe shocks that brought the entire globe to a halt. This paper was designed to investigate how COVID-19 affected school attendance in Kenya as a form of human capital development. Kenya’s gains in human capital development have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit the country in March 2020. Arguably, the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the education sector due to closure of schools for a period of at least seven months (March October 2020). While some learners were able to transition to online studies, most students especially in public schools, stayed at home without any form of learning. The results show that presence of COVID-19 incidences reduced the probability of children attending school. Being a male child and child belonging to a single parent household head had a reduced probability of school attendance. Households with higher incomes had an increased probability of school attendance while controlling for COVID-19 incidences. Children from elderly household heads had a reduced probability of school attendance when controlling for COVID-19 incidences. In future, there is need to put measures that can support public primary schools to cope with such shocks, e.g. acquisition of ICT gadgets, subsidised data bundles and basic media equipment that facilitates remote learning.
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    The Impact of Free Primary Education Policy on Human Capital Development in Kenya: Wins and Losses
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-08-05) Ngigi, Samuel; Njoka, John; Kamau, Paul; Oleche, Martine; Muriithi, Moses
    This report is based on a case study of human capital development in Africa, focusing on Free Primary Education (FPE) policy in Kenya passed in 2003. We address the policy contribution of Free Primary Education to human capital development in Kenya. The paper analyses and documents the wins and losses of the policy with regard to educational outcomes of enrolment, completion and transition from primary to secondary level education. The report uses the systems approach and mainly desk review of World Bank 30-year series data between 1989 and 2020. The results show that the FPE policy, albeit passed through a political declaration and manifesto devoid of much analysis at the time, made useful contributions to the three outcomes of enrolment, completion and transition. However, there were misses in learner achievement, gender and regional disparities. In addition, investments in reducing the teacher-pupil ratio made marginal sense. Drawing from these results, we recommend that human capital development policies in Africa be done in a more consultative way, whereby policy makers and technocrats discuss different scenarios before implementation. There is also a need to pay more attention to the quality of education offered beyond access and enrolment.