Making music in Kenya

*Free public education, sort of
*Computer teachers, for real
*Winning national music competitions

Since the 1980s, public primary education has been tuition-free in Kenya. For grades 1-8, teachers (about $2800/year, less deductions) and textbooks and supplies (about $2/year per student) are funded by the government (figures come from interviewing residents and seeing campus financial accounting posters). 

As a result, textbooks are basically pamphlets shared by several (3-5) students. Buildings are non-insulated block construction, with bare pock-marked concrete floors and tin roofs. There's no heating, air-conditioning, or electricity. There's little grass but dirt everywhere outside, so classroom floors are dust-covered. The head teacher's (read, "principal's") office is comparable.

Secondary (grades 8-12) and pre-unit (kindergarten and younger) are private and not free.  In many areas, it seems that secondary boarding schools were the first to spring up, with a cost around $1500 annually. More recently, day secondary schools have sprung up in some areas with annual tuition of only about $100-$110, plus lunches. All primary students in Class (grade) 8 take end-of term exams, the scores of which give them greater or fewer choices of secondary schools to attend. 

If you are an average uneducated adult making about a dollar a day, neither of the secondary choices is affordable, and precious few private scholarships are available. Students who are low-scoring do not qualify, regardless, and most enter some sort of job training, or marry, or both. Age limits for primary school seem not to exist, to the extent that even some married adults will attend primary school to improve their education and job opportunities.

Parents seem to be concerned for their children's education, even prior to Class 1, and the national teachers' union is lobbying for government-funded pre-unit (kindergarten) classes. We visited a remote campus that is higher-performing and sought-after so much that parents will send their children past closer schools, walking a minimum of 2-1/2 miles and up to 5 miles to attend. 

They built a room for ECD (Early Childhood Development, ages 3 ("baby,"), 4 ("middle"), and 5 ("pre-unit") with 33 students currently enrolled. The teacher is not funded by the government, so they ask families to contribute $30 per school year. If everyone paid, the teacher would make just under $1,000 annually, a little more than 1/3 of a government-funded teacher's pay. 

But a number of students here are orphans, whose host families cannot afford to support another child, and other families are so poor that they cannot pay tuition for their own. Probably less than 20 families actually pay for their children's attending. The school can't bear to send children away whose families are interested enough to send them to school daily, so the teacher walks or borrows a ride down these muddy and nearly impassable roads to make about $2 per teaching day, facing 33 faces with three distinct developmental levels who need hope and a head start, without any professional teaching materials and almost no supplies. Interested in a challenge?

Computer teachers funded by kenyakidscan.org are the real deal. Most are young and all are enthusiastic. The teachers collaborated in recent years to create their own syllabus (okay, teachers:scope and sequence) of specific goals and objectives for Classes 1-8. The lessons begin in basic familiarity with components and functions and extend to considerable mastery of MS Office, including Word, Excel, and Access. Lucy, the feeding program/computer center head teacher, says the syllabus will soon be updated to include Office 2007, an upgrade from the current 2003. 

One teacher we met Thursday has been teaching in the program for two years and is in her second year of University, taking classes in computer science and mathematics during primary school quarterly term breaks. She moved in January to a brand-new center donated by "Arlington Heights High School, Class of 1973," Steve Peifer's alma mater and graduating class. Since each center costs $15K-$20K to set up, that was a nice class project! The teacher accelerated lessons in this new program, giving the Class 8 students four 35-minute lessons weekly rather than the typical two each week, helping them do some catching up before leaving primary school in early August.

The computer centers suffered losses a few years ago, with thieves assaulting staff and stealing a number of laptops. All these centers are funded by voluntary donations and many centers provided by individuals or limited-fund organizations; the thefts were quite a blow to the program. Since then, doubled locking doors and window burglar bars discourage break-ins, and a welded-to-the-wall secure metal footlocker houses the laptops when not in use.

How do primary students make music in Kenya? Very skillfully, it seems, according to the certificates and trophies at Kiriko Primary School, including awards "at the national level." Students generally receive no music training, but a select group rehearses traditional songs under the direction of one of the Class teachers for area competitions. 

These students not only make music, they make the music makers! A couple of cowbells with improvised wire wrapping become handbells; hand-sawn 1" X 2" hardwood sticks on an old drawer become a marimba (surprisingly in tune, too). Two tin rectangles, punched with holes and with handmade handles mounted, become sandpaper blocks. A long piece of scavenged PVC pipe becomes a drone or pedal tone; a gourd and stick with a stranded-wire "string" and a bentwood bow with twine become a single-note fiddle. Handmade drums with a small chair behind become a drum kit; a small ring of heavy metal pipe with a metal rod become a clave. And a ram's horn with flutelike embouchure carved by hand keeps being a horn. A native flute may have been the only instrument not made by the students.

While we were outside watching the students at lunch, the head teacher gathered the performing group for an impromptu presentation. When they were ready, he invited us into an uncluttered classroom (music room?). As they began a rhythmic pattern, a student leader (playing a long tube with a broken gourd at the end) introduced the group. They proceeded with their song in jazz style, alternating ensemble playing with solo performances by the various students during background playing by the rest of the group. There being 10-12 performers, each playing in turn, the song lasted five minutes or so. I was attempting to record the performance, but put down device near the end and began playing my flutelike recorder with them. They were both fascinated and amused and had to come closer for a look when their song ended.

We left forty recorders and matching instruction books for them with the head teacher. These were donated in part or discounted by Bob and Laura Bergin of Sweet Pipes in Arlington. Longtime friends, they are the source for recorders used at home with fourth- and fifth-grade classes. Presenting a soccer ball for all students ended our visit there.

The school's head teacher made a personal phone call to Lucy, the Peifer program's  head teacher and our guide, that same evening to say the students had already tried out the recorders in the afternoon and were really enjoying them.