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Parents at Savanis Book Centre, Nairobi shopping for requirements ahead of school re-opening.[File, Standard]
Primary and secondary school learners countrywide started trooping back to school yesterday. Unfortunately, their return was preceded by troubling report, that thousands of learners in junior and senior secondary schools are not able to read and work on simple mathematics.
A study by Usawa Agenda released last week shows that nearly three in 10 junior school learners cannot read a simple Grade Three story or solve a basic mathematics problem.
The findings by the Usawa Agenda shows that by Grade 9, about 18 per cent of learners still cannot comprehend a Grade 3-level English text, while 22 per cent struggle with basic numeracy. Overall, 29 per cent lack both foundational literacy and numeracy skills. There are about 1.1 million Grade 9 learners in Kenya. If this report is accurate, and we pray that it is not, this means that 319,000 learners (29 per cent) lack basic literacy and numeracy skills.
