The role on gender policy in ‘scaling up’ girls access to secondary education in Kenya

Abstract

The Kenya government‟s commitment to increase girls‟ participation, retention, transition and completion at secondary school level is well documented in official government documents. It is also part of the Governments commitment to meet its commitments on international declaration on girl child education such as the millennium development goals. One of the clearest indicators of this commitment is the development of a gender policy on education. This paper outlines the stated policy intentions and envisaged strategies to achieve this objective. The benefits of providing girls with secondary school education and strategies for promoting girls with secondary school education are outlined in this paper. At the global level „Scaling up „of Good practices in Girls education has been identified as an important factor for effective implementation of gender related policies programmers and projects. This paper therefore discusses Concept of scaling up, the rationale for „scaling up‟, strategies for „scaling up, girls education, how to “scale”: global, national and local partnerships, types of „scaling up‟ and the conditions for effective „scaling up‟ projects programmes and policies for girls education. From the above the author recommends that the gender policy is an invaluable tool and should be implemented as envisaged and its monitoring and evaluation done to measure its success or otherwise. There is also need for the government to provide the required financial and human resources especially now that the right to education has been enshrined in the Kenyan constitution. Consequently in revising the Education Act the issue of provision of secondary school education for girls should be given serious attention Further more Education policy makers should be sensitized on the importance of scaling up of good practices in girls education if the barriers that affect them will be overcome . there should also be a deliberate effort to create the conditions that are necessary for effective scaling up of good practices in girls education