Child Sponsorship
on Colm in Kenya (Kenya), 24/Sep/2010 11:22, 34 days ago
There are 3.5 million children whose education is being sponsored by individual donor(s) via Child Sponsorship bodies such as Plan International or World Vision.There are significant studies in Uganda and Kenya supporting the success of child sponsorship in the short and long term:It yields an increase of approximately 2.9 years of formal educationIncreases the probability of formal employment by 20%Increases the probability of white collar employment to 31.7 percent from 19.1 percentIn addition, sponsored children are less likely to use alcohol or drugs and are more likely to become community leaders. Sponsoring the girl child has further gender specific socio-economic benefits includingEducated mothers are more likely to send there children to schoolsIt reduces the likelihood of a girl getting pregnant by over 7% for each year of school attendedFor those who are concerned about the well being of individual children in Africa, sponsorship is simple, cheap, effective but critically, crucially and consciously selective.For each child sponsored to complete theireducation in the developing world, 29 will drop out of school.That’s 101 million poor children worldwide that drop out of primary education due to (predominantly) poverty.Children face huge challenges in Africa to gain access to a good education and it is important to consider what role sponsorship plays in helping to change this.UN MDG 2According to the five year review of the UN Millennium Development Goals, Kenya is well on its way to achieving universal primary school for all children by 2015, but celebrating success might be misguided.Free primary school education was introduced in Kenya in 2003 allowing significant increases in Net Enrollment Figures. This success can be somewhat attributed to large amounts of aid given to it by DiFID (UK) and USAID.However the ugly head of corruption, endemic in Kenya Public Services threatened to derail this.The scandal prompted both DiFID and USAID to suspend education Aid payments (They have since re-started funding following the forced sacking of the Minister of Education.)This illustrates two things: 1. The reliance a country like Kenya has on development aid and the perilous position school children are in relying on public institutions who are so hell-bent on filling their pockets with this Aid 2. The inability of a country to sustainably pay for its own public services and of a public unable or unwilling to demand for better public services.Take point 2 here. The post powerful group in a effective democracy to effect change in the quality of public services offered is a majority, educated vote carrying middle class, of which, Kenya has one of the highest middle class in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, middle-class parents almost without exception choose to send their kids to Private School because of the overpopulation and poor teaching standards in Kenyan Public offering. This therefore removes one of the most powerful voices in demanding improvements in the public services offered by their government. One of the obstacles to organic change.50 Million people by 2020Furthermore, the size of the challenge ahead is illustrated in the recently released Kenyan Census 2009.The results show a population that increased by 35% over the last 10 years to 38.6m, well on its way to reach 50million by 2020. This census reveals also that 42% of Kenyans are under 14. Figures that will place further stress on an education system in Kenya already struggling to cope with the introduction of free-primary education.Put the existing problems of providing education to children in Kenya and its capacity for organic change, together with a rising population and it is clear that for Kenya children to continue to get access to a reasonable primary education beyond the magic date of 2015, still requires a huge effort and change.Looking briefly beyond primary education to secondary education, provides us with a gloomier picture.In Bamba, Kenya poorest constituency in rural coast province of Kenya, just 50km from Kilifi there are over 10,000 students attending primary school but only 400 or continuing their secondary education there.This is endemic of the problem facing students in Kenya of being able to complete secondary education. The National Attendance Rate for secondary schools for‘poorest’ children is 6%.Bigger PictureIt would shortsighted to miss the fact that huge strides have been made in improving education access in Kenya and Africa.But it would be equally remiss to ignore the sustainability and long term challenges is to maintain these changes.It is therefore difficult to accept that sponsorship of children is the answer. Sure, if you are concerned with individual well being of poor children, go towww.plan-international.org(incidentally, Plan’s strategy aims at improving the community it works in for all children in the community not just sponsored kids), for it is evident that sponsorship works for individuals.But for the bigger, more difficult issue of helping the millions of poor children who will not get access to school, primary and secondary, the answer is harder to find and therefore should require of us more attention, not less.Read, join, act…www.google.com