In brief
Kenya’s rural children are now attending surviving schools after a wave of closures driven by a new competency‑based curriculum that demands more resources and higher enrolments. Kaliluni Primary in Kitui county dropped from 200 pupils to five, while many youngsters now walk over an hour to reach a neighbouring school. Education officials warn that schools with fewer than a dozen students are unauthorised, prompting closure or merging of about 2,145 primary institutions, which threatens overcrowding in remaining schools and leaves teachers scrambling for roles. Families cite lower birth rates, urban migration and inadequate facilities as key reasons for the decline, while educators argue for a balanced rollout of the new curriculum.
In the dusty hinterland of Kitui county, cows still graze inside the doors of Kaliluni Primary School where the teacher has since disappeared. Three years back, the same compound boomed with the chatter of more than 200 pupils.
Today, only five students linger, and most commuters now walk over an hour to reach the nearest functioning school – a journey that that once brought them only ten minutes in their former classroom.
The root of the problem lies in Kenya’s 2017 Competency‑Based Education overhaul, which replaced a grade‑finale system with a two‑stage model that puts science, technology and other practical subjects into the early years. The new curriculum demands more classrooms, lab facilities and specialist teachers – resources that most rural schools cannot meet.
“We aren’t seeing enough students to justify the cost,” says Education Minister Julius Ogamba. He has announced that 2,145 public primary schools face closure or consolidation, citing a minimum of 45 pupils required for viability.
Former teacher and mother Maureen Mwasiya has already moved her daughter to a school eight kilometres away because Kaliluni can no longer host teachers or classrooms. The cost, she told us, is both financial and emotional for families who must travel on rough roads without any buses.
However, the closure saga is not solely about infrastructure. Fewer babies, migration to towns, and a desire for formal employment all contribute to declining enrolments in villages.
“The new curriculum should strengthen schools, especially for low‑income communities, not weaken them,” argues Tabitha Katingu, a parent who now has a three‑kilometre walk. Teachers are also re‑allocating; an educator from Machakos county says that merging schools has shifted him from a tiny community school to a larger establishment, bringing the risk of overcrowding.
Coal‑mining, agriculture and the rise of mobile phones have reduced the supply of schools that could support the new curriculum, and the Ministry says that a blanket notification has not proven enough to avert a “crowding crisis” across the country.
