Kenya Secondary Education Equity and Quality Improvement Program

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This Operation Information Summary (OIS) outlines a proposal for a new operation focused on secondary education (Junior, and Secondary Education). The proposed operation builds on the ongoing objectives and interventions under the Kenya Secondary Education Quality Improvement Project (SEQIP P160083), and Kenya: Primary Education Equity in Learning Program (KPLEEP, P176867) operations, to further consolidate, at scale, promising interventions. The proposed operation will use the financing instrument, a Program for Results (PforR), to complement KPEELP Program’s objectives by emphasizing result-oriented strategies, systems strengthening and capacity building of relevant oversight institutions to improve overall policy implementation, and equitable service delivery.Context Summary The basic education system needs to expand rapidly to accommodate the nearly 2 million students expected to enroll in Junior and Senior Schools over the next 7 years. Of immediate concern is the 1.7 Million in Junior school, grade 7, that will join Grade 9 in about 18 months (January 2025). These learners will require an additional 20,000 new classrooms nationwide. The government has put in place fiscal measures to recruit an additional 120,000 teachers for junior and senior by 2025, and instructional materials are being developed from November 2023 for grade 9. Overall, from 2010 to 2022, enrollment in secondary education grew at an average of 7 percent per year, increasing from 1.6 million to 3.8 million students. However, transition rates have yet to reach their pre-pandemic peak of 91.0 percent in 2020, as they dropped to 78.5 in 2021 due to the pandemic and remained around 78.6 in 2022. Maintaining the growing demand and the recovery has demanded significant resources and Kenya has consistently invested around 5 percent of its GDP during the last decade. Sustaining the high levels of investment to address growing needs in education is therefore a necessity. At the same time, Kenya has made immense efforts in the roll out of the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) and Competency Based Assessment (CBA). The Presidential Working party on Education Reforms (PWPER, 2022/2023) recently conducted an evaluation of the implementation of the CBC and CBA in the past 4-5 years and has made solid technical recommendations to further improve implementation of the CBC and CBA. The emerging challenges in the PWPER report include a need to further redefine the scope and learning areas of the CBC to focus better on core competencies only; align teacher preparation and support at the school level to new pedagogical approaches required for the CBC and CBA; provision of operational costs and a minimum essential package of school inputs for adequate implementation of the CBC and CBA, and to minimize demands on parents/households on CBC related costs for each learner; and establishment of a robust monitoring and learning process for the CBC and CBA to continuously inform improvements and adjustments. The expansion and roll-out of CBC and CBA will need to deliberately address existing inequalities in access and learning in order to improve learning outcomes for all children. Regarding access, although the national gross enrollment rate in secondary stood at 76.5 percent, 9 counties presented rates under 40 percent. Poorer educational outcomes are also concentrated in the poorest populations and some counties in the north and northeast. Similarly, while gender parity has been achieved in access at a national level, disparities in learning outcomes remain significant: on average, girls underperform in math and science at both primary and secondary national tests. In addition, improving learning outcomes in secondary education in rural areas, lagging regions and for poorer populations is essential to achieve the objectives Kenya has set for itself, in improving education performance, including school to work transition. Proposed Results AreasThe proposed PforR program will support the implementation of a series of recommendations in three focus areas: i) expanding equitable access to quality Junior and Senior School Education; ii) Further transformation of teaching and teacher management and support and; iii) Systems strengthening and building institutional capacity for equitable service delivery, fostering inclusivity and equality. These focus areas are aligned to the National Education Sector Strategy and Plan (NESSP II) as well as the PWPER report recommendations specifically concerning junior and senior schools Education. Below is a preliminary scoping of the proposed Results Areas for the new operation: a) Result Area 1: Expanding Equitable Access to Quality Junior and Senior School Education: i. Adequate implementation and monitoring of CBC and CBA in Junior and Senior Schools: Develop an operational plan with critical milestones and timelines for implementation of the CBC and CBA in Junior and Secondary Schools, implement the proposed reforms in e-assessments under the CBA, and develop and implement robust monitoring and learning mechanisms for CBC and CBA implementation to inform continuous improvements in implementation. ii. Infrastructure Development: Construction of new 20,000 classrooms/integrated learning resource centers for Junior School, and the associated WASH facilities to meet the WASH-students ratio standards for Junior schools. Regarding the National school meals program, infrastructure development will also include construction of kitchen/food safety facilities as needed, clean cooking energy, and fencing of schools particularly where children are considered exposed and vulnerable. iii. Inclusive Education: Specific efforts to improve performance of girls’ and vulnerable boys’ performance in Sciences, Mathematics and English (SME); in Special Needs Education (SNE), strengthen data quality to inform targeting and investments for various SNE categories, and capacity building of 10 regional Educational Assessment Centers; and support development of guidelines for accelerated learning and implementation of these guidelines targeting marginalized learners and out-of-school children and youth, and the enhancing of adult and continuing education. b) Result Area 2: Further Transformation of the Teaching Quality, Teacher Development and Management. i. Enhance quality and relevance of Pre-service and in-service teaching training interventions. Further support the development and implementation of teaching training programs and retooling activities, alignment to Competency-Based Teacher Education (CBTE) and Competency-Based Teacher Assessment (CBTA) for Junior and Senior Schools. ii. Enhancing provision of high quality and affordable instructional materials: Support the implementation of reforms for instructional materials under the School Learning and Instructional Material Centre (SLIMC), for CBC and CBA, including teachers’ resources, mobile science kits for Junior school, virtual labs for Senior School, and adapted instructional materials and learning assistive devices for learners with Special Needs Education (SNE). iii. Technology integration for remote learning: Scaling up virtual teaching/live streaming in schools affected by teacher physical presence mainly due to insecurity. An independent of the live streaming pilot is initiated to inform design for the scale up. c) Results Area 3: Systems Strengthening and Building Institutional Capacity for Equitable Service Delivery.Building systems and enhancing institutional capacity and quality to improve equitable service delivery in a systemic and sustainable approach. Relevant institutional assessments will be conducted to inform strategic systems strengthening and capacity building: i. Enhancing a Central Scholarship Administration System at the Jomo Kenyatta Foundation (JKF). Centralizing the fragmented offer of scholarships by various financing sources with improved targeting to further increase transparency and reach