“New Normal” Turns Kenyan Parents Into Teachers

It is 10.35 AM on a Tuesday. Breakfast was about an hour ago and the study session has just begun and Leo has already asked for a bathroom break for the second time. This is the norm with Wanjiku’s 6-year old grade one son.

He will then ask for snacks, ask questions about unrelated study topics, and generally lose interest over the two-hour daily course of the study session. It does not help that his mother is currently working from home and still meet the quotas she would have if she were working from the office.

The state of Kenyan education is in a wobbly state due to the insistent pandemic. The government issued a directive to have schools closed from May 15, 2020. From then on, the task of keeping kids up to date with both the curriculum and education. With all parents with kids in school, teacher or not, being turned into educators, homes around Kenya have been turned into education centers.

Unlike in areas curated for learning like schools, homes are essentially the go-to point of relaxation for kids. The online learning approach seems the most sensible course to pursue, but the country’s infrastructure is making it hard to ensure an even distribution of resources to students across all economical classes.
Children from rural areas with minimal or no internet access are at risk of being left out of the learning bandwagon as compared to their urban counterparts.
Those that have the means have to sail un-chartered waters seeing as there is no prescribed curriculum to follow. They rely on learning aids such as videos and material passed on via platforms such as email, WhatsApp, and telegram.
John Maina is a primary school teacher by profession, teaching a public school in Nakuru. His son is in form one, and since the change in the industry, the school has been sending them revision material via
Whatsapp. He admits there have been challenges curating steady study sessions due to the many distractions that occur at home.
With some parents out of work and barely making ends meet, data to study is not exactly a priority. For those that are still on the clock, it has become a struggle to work and be a teacher.

The situation is dire for candidates who are hanging in the balance, not knowing if the timelines for their examinations are still on or not. The opening dates were pushed forward by a month, leaving the state of education hanging in the balance.
For parents and teachers alike, the only thing they can do is hope that the pandemic becomes manageable enough for schools to reopen.