Economic Growth in Kenya - Assignment Example

Name CWID Kenya PART ONE Kenya’s population by province PROVINCE POPULATION Western 4,334,282 Coast 5,668,123 Nairobi 10,006,805 Rift Valley 4,383,743 Eastern 2,310,757 N/Eastern 6,999,436 Central 3,138,369 Population attending school at different levels PROVINCE PRE-PRIMARY PRIMARY SECONDARY UNIVERSITY KENYA (TOTAL) 2,300,765 9,524,218 2,18,987 189,009 Adapted from CIA, 2013 There are two official languages in Kenya English and Kiswahili. However, Kiswahili is more spoken more than English. There are also numerous indigenous languages. Kenya has a large Christian (82.5%) population with Protestants accounting for 47.4%, Catholic 23.3% and others accounting for 11.8%. Christians are followed by Muslim occupying 11.1%, tradionalists occupy 1.6%, others occupy 1.7 %, and those with no religion occupy 2.4%. As at July 2013, Kenya had a population of 44,037,656 (CIA, 2013). Age structure 0 -14 years 42.4% 15-24 years 18.8% 25-54 years 32.4% 55-64 years 3.6% 65 years and over 2.7% Adapted from CIA, 2013 Kenya has a population growth rate of 2.27%. Its birth rate is 30.08 births/1,000 populations. Kenya has an urban population of 24% of its total population and a rate of urbanization of 4.36% annual rate of change. The dependency ratio in Kenya varies different groups however; the country has a dependency ration of 81.5%. Kenya has a low infant mortality rate. Among male the mortality rate is 46.89 deaths out of 1000 live births. In addition, among the female it stands at 37.37 deaths among 1000 live births. The nation has a life expectancy at birth among males that stands at 61.84 years and among female it is 63.77 years and that of the total population is 63.29 years. Kenya has a total fertility rate of 3.76 children born/women. Kenya spends 4.5% of its GDP on health. Kenya spends 6.7% of its GDP on education. Has a literacy level of 87.4%. It has a school life expectancy of 11 years. Kenya is located in Eastern Africa and its borders the Indian Ocean between Tanzania and Somalia. It has a total area of 580,367 sq km with land covering 569,140 sq km and water covering 11,227 sq km. its climates varies from tropical climate along the coast to arid in the interior. The country is endowed with numerous natural resources, for instance, salt, soda ash, zinc, gemstones, fluorspar, gypsum, diatomite, hydropower as well as wildlife. There are a number environmental issues that are currently facing Kenya, for instance, water pollution, degradation of water quality, hazardous wastes, water hyacinth in Lake Victoria, soil erosion, deforestation, poaching and desertification. Kenya has been hard hit by a number of issues such as corruption and reliance on primary goods whose prices has been low for a very long period. For a long time Kenya has been the largest economy in Eastern Africa however this is threatened by low infrastructure investment. The country has high unemployment rates. Kenya’s unemployment rates stands at 40.0%. It has an inflation rate of 3.30% the nation for a number of times it has had chronic inflationary pressures, budget deficits as well as sharp currency depreciation. All these have been prompted by high food and fuel import prices. In March 2012, oil was discovered in Kenya. If the deposits will be commercially viable, it will give a chance of reducing its ever increasing trade deficit. Kenya has a GDP (purchase power parity) of $77.14 billion. Its GDP (real growth rate) is 4.7%. Its GDP per capita is $1,800. Although Kenya’s absolute poverty has been declining in the past years, it is still high at 45.9%. Income inequality stands at 29%. As at 1st July 2013, Kenya had a debt of 1.1 trillion. Kenya has a current account balance of $3,333,196,000.00. 2011 2012 Income payments (BoP;US dollar) in Kenya 304796641.3 221422178.3 Goods imports 8388234729.2 10688963520 Service imports 167081343.7 1870225542.1 Royalty and license fee 23566334.8 28437309.8 Import of goods; income and service 10363847714.2 12780611240.4 Transport services(percent of service imports) 46.5 46.0 PART TWO This paper will discuss about education in Kenya since education is backbone of any country that would like to develop. It is from education that we can economists, lawyers, writers, doctors and environmentalists among others. These people help in efficient running of the society without such people there can be little progress in society. History of education in Kenya Initially, before Europeans came to Kenya, the different societies in Kenya had their unique education system. During those early days’ classrooms and teachers did not exist. Each society member took part in ensuring that children are educated (Sabar, 2012). These children learnt their respective cultural traditions as well as the customs of their respective ancestors. Education also took the form of apprenticeship. Initially, the form of education was informal education. However, upon arrival of missionaries in Kenya they introduced formal education so that it could catapult the spread of Christianity. Additionally, missionaries taught practical subjects such as gardening and carpentry that were pertinent around the missions. The Frazer report of 1909 advocated for development of a separate education system for Africans, Europeans and Asians. This system was used until 1963 when Kenya gained independence. After independence, a commission was developed so that it could institute some changes in education sector. The fundamental objective of the commission was to enhance national unity as well as unification of various ethnicities through subjects. Initially, Kenya had 7-4-2-3 education system. However, in 1985 it was changed to 8-4-4 which implied that students would take 8 years in primary education; secondary would take 4 years and four years in the university. Student enrollment in schools Year Primary education Secondary education 1994 5,557,008 619,839 1996 5,597,656 658,253 1998 5,919,721 700,538 2000 6,155,500 772,464 2002 6,062,900 778,601 2003 7,159,500 882,513 2004 7,394,700 926,150 2006 7,632,200 1,030,080 2007 8,330,200 1,180,267 2008 8,563,800 1,382,211 2009 8,831,400 1,507,546 (Adapted from Acedo, Adams & Popa, 2012) There is a great difference in accessing education between girls and boys since independence. The wide gender gap in the education sector has been unswerving and is with all sub-sectors of education. Previously, although nationally the Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) at the elementary school level has been about 49 percent for girls and 51 percent for boys. Regional statistics display gender differences in the eight provinces in Kenya. For instance, North Eastern Province the National Enrollment Ratio between 1990 and 2001 has been 9.8 percent for girls and 16.5 percent for girls. In Nairobi Province, the NER is 42.2 percent for girls and 43.3 percent for boys. During the same period the NER at secondary school levels by gender has been 47 percent for girls and 52 percent for boys (Busken & Webb, 2009). The gender disparity is wider in Rift Valley, North Eastern and Coast provinces, where incidences there are high incidences of poverty and cultural –religious factors work not in favour of schooling of girls (World Bank, 2007). For instance, after the declaration of free-primary education in 2003, Gross Enrolment Ratio in North Eastern Province remained at 16.9 percent and 31 percent for girls and boys respectively. Women are also under-pinned in higher education. A meager 30 percent of girls have been able to access university education in Kenya (Busken & Webb, 2009). Owing to gender inequalities there is low enrollment of girls in schools. Girls are perceived to be inferior to boys therefore some communities believe that boys should be the one who can get education and girls should not. This believes have resulted in fewer ladies enrolling in schools. There has also been the problem of early marriages among some communities in Kenya. Girls marry at a tender age while they are still going to school in most cases the girls are usually still at the elementary level. Marrying off young school-going ladies implies that the girl will not be able to attend school since she will have to take up the roles of a wife; this involves ensuring that the husband is well taken care of. Poverty contributes to girls being married at a tender age. When a parent is poor and can hardly sustain bringing up the child, the parents will be prompted to give their girl to any potential husband as long the husband can pay the dowry price. Consequently, the girl will not be able to attend school (Aikman & Unterhalter, 2005). According to Wallace & Coles (2005), gender insensitive policies contribute to gender inequalities in the education sector. These policies seem to be either ambivalent or permissive to discontinuation of girls from the education system, for instance, teen pregnancy causes girls to drop from schools and in some cases the girls lack the chance to continue with their studies upon delivery of the baby. In some scenarios, the punitive public perception is not conducive to the creation of opportunities that allow post-teenage mothers to resume school upon delivery. Consequently, this implies that the girl will have to drop out of school and take care of the newborn baby and she will not have a chance of getting back to school. This gives boys a competitive advantage over girls, therefore boys have little or no hindrances to access to education while girls are disadvantaged yet they should have equal chances (Aikman & Unterhalter, 2005). PART 3 Developing gender sensitive polices. As mentioned before, there are gender sensitive policies in that girls are disadvantaged in various issues. For instance, when a school going girl gives birth she is not allowed to get back to school. Such policies should be discarded and replaced with policies that are gender sensitive. The policies to be developed should also ensure that the curriculum should include issues that deal with the effects of having early pregnancies. By having this topic being inculcated in the curriculum it will ensure that girls are aware of what they should when they are in school and shun from having sexual affairs until the right time comes. The gender sensitive policy to be developed should also advocate for development of many boarding schools that will help in containing girls from the male dominated environment. For example, in Kenya some students have to walk for long distances so that they can get to school some students have to do about 20 kilometers on a daily basis. By having more girls’ boarding schools there will be little interruption of the girls and they will be able to concentrate on their academics. Therefore, this will give them a competitive edge over boys. Development of policies that discourage cultures that discourages girls from taking in education. In Kenya especially among the nomadic pastoralists girls are married of at a tender age when they are still going to school. Policies should that discourage marrying off of younger girls. The policy should advocate for harsh penalties among parents that will be involved in such archaic methods of getting money from their daughters in form of dowry. Since most of the parents involved in such backwards acts are poor, the policy to be developed should be tailored at ensuring that areas that have been hard-hit by this vice parents are taught on various methods that they can use so that they can earn income. For instance, in Kenya the vice is common among the pastoralist families. Therefore, they ought to be encouraged to sell some of their livestock so that they can be able to sustain themselves since most them have large herds of cattle yet they are poor. These issues that limit ladies from accessing education come about as a result of climate change which exacerbates everything that is happening in the education system. Strategies should be developed so that Kenyans can adapt to climate change this can include using scarce water more efficiently, developing drought resistant crops, planting trees that are less vulnerable to fires and storms as well as adapting building codes to extreme weather events. Carbon Capture as well as storage policy are appropriate in measures aimed at reducing externalities which come about as a result of greenhouse gas emission of greenhouse gas. This strategy derives its germaneness from the mere fact that it does not reduce the fossil fuel consumed in comparison to other methods of payment of property rights for polluting the environment. Furthermore, Carbon Capture as well as storage policy is of immense significance in nations which generate large volumes of carbon. Additionally, technologies are less developed to lower carbon emission that is released. A tax payment formula for any unit of fuel that is produced is very important. Large scale production of fuels results in higher emission of harmful gases to the environment that eventually results in externalities. Institution of a unit taxation system is indispensible since all producers of fossil fuel will have to reduce the raw material spent therefore reducing amount of particulate as well as gases released. References Acedo, C., Adams, D & Popa, S. (2012). Quality and qualities: Tension I education reforms: Tension in education reforms. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Aikman, S & Unterhalter, E. (2005). Beyond access: Transforming policy and practice for gender equality in education. Oxford: Oxfam. Buskens, A & Webb, A. (2009). African women ad ICTs: Creating new places with technology. Nairobi: IDRC. CIA The World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/) Sabar, G. (2012). Church state and society in Kenya. New York: Routledge. Wallace, T & Coles, A. (2005). Gender, water and development. New York: Berg. World Bank (2007). Gender and economic growth in Kenya: Unleashing the power of women. Wasington, DC: World Bank. Read More