Education (Japanese)

[1C01] Equity and Inclusion in Kenyan rural primary education: Reconsidering the Public-Private Dichotomy Analysis

*Mikiko NISHIMURA¹ (1. International Christian University)

Keywords:Primary education, Kenya, Private Education, Equity, Inclusion

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which call for ensuring fair, inclusive, and quality education for all, may have universal value as principles, but they are difficult to visualize. In particular, one issue that is often raised in discussions of equity and inclusion in education is the rise of low-cost private schools. A number of papers have been published over the past two decades, mainly in the sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia regions, explaining how the rapid rise of low-cost private schools is linked to growing inequality (e.g., UNESCO, 2021) while others attempted to explain how private schools match the demands of the poor (e.g., Dixson, 2013; Oketch , 2010; Tolley, 2013). This presentation aims to understand what it means to choose private schools despite being poor by reconsidering meanings beyond the binary view of private and public schools in terms of equity and inclusiveness. Specifically, based on the interviews conducted in four public schools and two private schools in rural Kenya, we report hypotheses about how equity and inclusion are perceived in schooling settings, and in particular the implications of low-cost private schools. The survey results indicate that the concept of equity and inclusiveness depends on the subjectivity and experience of principals and teachers, the Maasai culture, and the relationship with the local community, and cannot necessarily be viewed in terms of a binary axis of private schools and public schools, and that private schools contribute more to the local economy through employment promotion, in-kind services and local purchasing than public schools, and are more rooted in the local community. This suggests that private schools function not only through market mechanisms, but also through community relations and trust in the school founders. If equity and inclusion are reconsidered on the axis of community as a unit, rather than public or private, it may offer a new perspective that goes beyond the dichotomous theoretical framework of neoliberalism and social democracy, and is tailored to local realities.