RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN USAID FUNDING AND LEVEL OF EDUCATION ACCESS IN NAIROBI KENYA
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN USAID FUNDING AND LEVEL OF EDUCATION ACCESS IN NAIROBI KENYA
M’masi Sylvia - Masters of Arts Public Policy and Administration, Kenyatta University, Kenya
Dr. Edna Moi - Lecturer, Kenyatta University, Kenya
ABSTRACT
Education access is quite important to each and every individual in a country. In Kenya the illiteracy levels are slowly declining due to more and more citizens gaining access to education. In the past education access had only been a preserve of the wealthy, in the society. Currently also the poor and less privileged in the society have access to education. The research was necessitated by the fact that despite the government and other stake holders combining efforts to ensure more and more Kenyans had access to education especially in Nairobi which is the capital of Kenya, the level of education access was increasing at a very slow rate. From data obtained from NGO’s such as USAID the slow increase in the level of education access in Nairobi was blamed on inadequate funding. When funding was increased, the level of education access was on the increase but once the funding was reduced education access was on the decline. With USAID reducing its funding in the Kenyan education sector over the past few years, many parents found it difficult to educate their children especially in the Nairobi slum dwellings where earnings are low. The research was guided by the operating income approach and the human capital theory. These two theories were used since they relate closely to the levels of capital and resource utilization and the expected results. Since most of the data was readily available from USAID itself, the government and most of the learning institutions which received funding from USAID, a casual research approach suited the study. Despite the casual approach, primary data was collected from USAID staff and some of the stakeholders, where a total of 120 respondents were interviewed. They were distributed amongst USAID staff and policy implementation stakeholders where the partners accounted for the bulk of respondents. A pre-structured questionnaire was mailed to the respondents which allowed them to fill it at their own free time. Simple regression analysis and correlation analysis were used to analyze most of the data collected. The main finding of the study was that whenever USAID faces tough economic times, they are forced to cut funding into most of their projects such as educational projects being undertaken in Nairobi. To deal with such occurrences there was need for USAID to have clearly set goals and time periods within which the goals must be achieved whether funding is reduced or not.
