Shocks to School Attendance
Date
2024-04-05
Authors
Oleche, Martine
Kamau, Paul
Muriithi, Moses
Njoka, John
Ngigi, Samuel
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Economic Research Consortium
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic affected the way children experience education and, by extension, the learning capability. It is evidenced that the longer they stayed out of school, the greater the risk of the poorest among them dropping out completely. Furthermore, even when they returned back to school their performance was dismal (Miguel and Kremer, 2004; UN, 2020). Access to learning technology during the period of closure in Kenya seems to have favored disproportionately the private schools’ pupils at the expense of public-school pupils. This in a sense introduced inequality in school attendance which to large extent was not justifiable. In addition, it contravened the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on quality education and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)10 on reduction of inequality. It is therefore clear that the pandemic adversely affected quality and quantity of learning outcomes in Kenya and
more severely the poor households.