Every year over 30%of children in marginalized areas of Kenya especially girls don’t get education at all.
Missionaries have been credited to the introduction of education in Kenya. The most prestigious schools in Kenya today were former mission schools. Most of these missionaries favoured the agricultural areas leaving out the marginalized areas especially Northern Kenya mostly because these areas contained harshest climatic conditions, and were already inhabited by Muslims.
While acquisition of modern education has led to cultural alienation in most communities, it has analyzed that the impact is more profound on pastoral communities. The culture of nomadic groups is more communal as opposed to modern education, which in its presentation focuses on individual. Coupled with lack of appreciation of pastoralist livelihoods, and the general difficulty of providing formal education to the people on the move, the predominant position has been to transform pastoral communities as a prerequisite for receiving formal education.
Access to Northern Kenya has been minimal. While the North continues to enjoy environments secured from environmental and cultural pollutions, some of the cultural practices continue to be propagated. These practices are usually cushioned by sayings and proverbs. For example a famous Gabbra saying that goes “God first, then man then camel and lastly the girl” explain why it is always difficult for the people to sell their livestock to support their girl’s education. a famous Somali saying “a girl is like a vegetable” supports early marriage. Early/forced marriages and female genital mutilation (FGM) impede the pastoral communities.
The pastoral community is being rendered fragile by weak policy and institutional framework, environmental degradation and climatic changes. Pastoral communities are excluded from credit facilities. They struggle to market their produce. Pasture and water are diminishing. Drought and floods today occur at shorter intervals.
Edudemic 