The Place of Homeschooling in the Re-opened, Post-COVID-19 Kenyan Basic Education Sector

Memorandum
To
The National COVID-19 Education Response Committee
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
REPUBLIC OF KENYA
From
Reginald M.J. Oduor, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
University of Nairobi
22nd May, 2020


TITLE:
The Place of Homeschooling in the Re-opened, Post-COVID-19 Kenyan Basic Education Sector

1. Background
I present this memorandum as:
A. A trainer of high school teachers with thirty (30) years experience teaching Education Students in the Kenyan public university system at both undergraduate and post-graduate level.
B. A citizen deeply concerned about the unfair and unreasonable treatment that home-schooling parents have received in Kenya since the passing of the Basic Education Act No.14 of 2013.

Home-schooling in Kenya: The Legal Environment
The term “home-schooling” refers to a situation in which parents take direct charge of their children’s formal education. Homeschooling is not a specific curriculum, but rather the delivery of any curriculum by the parents themselves. Several Kenyan families have home-schooled their children from the early 1990s using a variety of curricula, including 8-4-4, I.G.C.S.E., and Accelerated Christian Education. A number of Kenyan children have completed their high school education through Home-schooling and have been admitted to universities inside and outside Kenya, and several are already employed, while others have ventured into entrepreneurship.

The Constitution of Kenya recognises the right of the child to education. Article 43 (1) (f) lists education as one of the fundamental rights of every person. Furthermore, Article 53 (1) (b) states that every child has the right to free and compulsory basic education. Nevertheless, neither of the articles limits education to the school environment.


However, Home-schooling Kenyan parents have lately been alarmed by the fact that the Basic Education Act 2013 includes provisions that presume that education can only be attained through institutionalised schools. For example, Article 28 of the Act, titled “Right of Child to Free and Compulsory Education”, states that “The Cabinet Secretary shall implement the right of every child to free and compulsory basic education” (Article 28(1)), but the tenor of the Act is that such education can only happen in the context of an institutional school. Indeed, several homeschooling parents have been arrested, and in at least one instance, charged with violating the provisions of the Basic Education Act 2013.

Rationale for Facilitating Home-schooling in the Era of COVID-19
The advent of COVID-19, with measures such as social distancing and enhanced hygiene, requires that the government undertakes an objective evaluation of its position on homeschooling.

Home-schooling, as a viable model for formal education, is justifiable on the following grounds:
1. Education is the equipping of the young with requisite knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable them to participate in the life of the society.
2. Despite the rise of formal school education, the responsibility of providing education primarily rests with parents. Consequently, parents who take their children to school are merely delegating rather than abdicating this responsibility, and this is evident in the practice of schools regularly meeting parents to brief them on their children’s progress.
3. The ideal model of education is one in which the child gets maximum personalised attention. By the very nature of the size of a typical family, a home-schooled child gets much better personalised attention than a child in a typical institutional school. As such, parents who are willing to provide such personalised attention at home, often at great sacrifice to themselves, ought not to be denied the right to do so.
4. The personalised attention referred to in (3) above is critical for exceptionally gifted children, as well as for children with disabilities. For example, the public school system is grossly ill-equipped to provide education for children with autism, but some parents of such children are diligently working to provide them with high quality education in the home environment. Consequently, criminalising home-schooling, as the Basic Education Act 2013 has done, violates the right of such children to high quality education in contravention of Article 54 of the Constitution.
5. Allowing parents to take their children to private schools while denying others the right to educate theirs at home is discriminatory contrary to Article 27 of the Constitution.
6. While many have the false impression that homeschooling is unstructured, most homeschooling parents use curricula that are closely monitored by highly qualified personnel, thereby ensuring the maintenance of high standards of curriculum delivery. In addition, some of the curricula used in homeschools require that parents get prior training in their use.
7. While many have the impression that homeschooled children are isolated, their parents form networks that facilitate regular joint activities among the children. Besides, the parents enroll their children in various activities outside their homes such as football, swimming, and music lessons. In addition, there are joint annual events for various home-schooling groups.
8. There is no evidence that children who have gone through homeschooling are disadvantaged in comparison with those who have attended institutional schools.

Recommendations
I therefore passionately plead with your esteemed Committee to help secure the rights of parents who wish to take up the noble task of personally being in charge of their children’s formal education, thereby contributing to the much-needed space for social distancing in our schools. Towards this end, I recommend the following specific measures:
(1) That the Government facilitates rather than frustrates parents who are both willing and able to provide home-schooling for their children. Such facilitation includes making online resources developed by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development readily available to them.
(2) That the Government moves with speed to amend the Basic Education Act No.14 of 2013, with a view to expunging from it all provisions that explicitly or implicitly criminalise home-schooling.
(3) That the Government initiates a process through which the home-schooling community formulates guidelines to ensure the provision of high quality education in all instances in which parents choose to deploy home-schooling.

Time to preserve our sanity in the Midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Dear people, one potential damage of the Covid-19 crisis is the deterioration of mental health, with possible long-term negative effects on individuals and society at large. Too many people are glued to their mobile phones, computers, TV screens or radios waiting for the next thing that is said about the pandemic whether from medical experts, journalists, privately produced video clips, or even what I would call bad old social media gossip. Imbibing all this material is causing many to be preoccupied with the pandemic, and hence to be unproductive. In effect, we are increasingly having people experience mental paralysis - an inability to act due to fear of infection and possible death, keeping them from being useful to their families, friends, colleagues and to themselves. It is certainly wise to regularly update oneself about what is happening: watching or listening to the main news programmes on TV or radio is useful. Reading and/or watching a few well-chosen pieces is also helpful. However, spending the whole day watching and/or listening to Covid-19 talk is an addiction, and every addiction is harmful. Let us remember that most patients recover from this thing, and neither will everyone catch it. What will we do when 30 years from now we find ourselves around, but having been mentally wounded from dying a Thousand times before we actually die? When one seriously considers the current palpable mass anxiety, one would imagine people never die from road and plane accidents, terminal illnesses, chronic conditions, crime, among others. Let us please find a balance between information-gathering and maintaining sanity. A lot of the time spent reading every posting and watching every video could actually be fruitfully spent with family, making money online, or completing a project or two that were just not making progress in the normal hustle and bustle of life. Come on! There will be life after Covid-19, and many of us will be part of it; and whether or not we shall be, it does not make sense to spend these crucial days in fruitless anxiety. Instead, let us take each and every precautionary measure recommended by experts, but let us protect ourselves from becoming mentally ill. Let us arise and be productive: spend quality time with family; call and cheer up family and friends who live alone; clear that clutter which you have wanted to get rid of for years; read that book which you have always wanted to read, but have not found time to do so; complete that research paper; write that newspaper article, poem, novel, play or song; explore new business opportunities online, among many other things waiting for your attention; and if you find these thoughts helpful, pass them on!