Lately I’ve been looking at recent news that have been going around the world and it has caught my attention that Kenya’s education system has changed a lot.

Education is very important to individuals and society. Without it, we would lose all the knowledge from the past years and all the standard of conduct.  An individual must learn the culture of the society or the correct ways to do things. He or she must be socialized into the prevailing culture and must learn the rules of conduct and expectations about future behavior.  Furthermore, each country has a unique way to educate their population. Countries like Kenya has a unique way to educate its population. In 2003, Kenya declared free primary education for all children, regardless of age. Kenya’s government provided funds for all expenses related to these children getting education. All levies and fees charged in primary schools were stopped. Kenya uses a 8 – 4 – 4 system, which  is divided into three stages (eight years in the primary education, 4 years in the secondary education, and 4 years in the undergraduate programs). They start school at the age of 6 and finish their education by the age of 22. The years are divided into three terms, each term is 13 weeks long and is divided by 1 month of vacation. Most schools in Kenya work with the same timing. They start school at 8 a.m. and leave at 4 p.m. Schools in Kenya have an average of 30 students per classroom  and the classes have benches where students sit. Kenyan students learn basic subjects such as English, Math, Science, Music, History, Civics, Geography, and Kiswahili language. The grading system in Kenya is called the KSCE system which means that if a student has an 80% and above grade that is considered as an A (4.00). A ‘B’ is considered as 70 through 79%, C is 60 -69%, D is from 50 to 59% and E is below 50%.  

In comparison to the American curriculum, Kenya’s curriculum is quite different.  In Kenya the percentage of literacy is 85.1% whereas percentage of literacy in the United States is 99%. In the United States, elementary education which is the primary education lasts for 6 years followed by 2 to 3  years of Middle School. In Kenya they have a primary education that last for 8 years and a secondary education that last for 4 years. Kenya is  ranked as first in the world for government spending on education and United States is ranked 38th in the world for government spending on education. 

I’m writing this information about Kenya specifically because before Kenya did not have this type of education system due to the lack of financial and economical needs. People need to know about this, because we are unaware about the world lately. They are focused on other things such as themselves, but they do not understand the feeling of how people are suffering in the world. We should do something about it. The way Kenya is developing now, we should also be concerned about other countries too who are dying of poverty. WE SHOULD STOP BEING SELFISH AND PUT OUR MONEY TO USE.