This study examines women’s experiences of formal education in Kenya. The study aims at making visible the cultural, historical, economic and political factors that shaped, and continue to shape, women’s educational and employment opportunities. It also highlights women’s agency exemplified in their struggle to provide their children, and particularly their daughters, with educational opportunities. The study draws attention to the gender and power issues that limit women’s participation in the public sphere. These are issues that policy makers, politicians, and development agents have not and still do not adequately address. The study employs post-positivist research methodologies, particularly feminist methodologies informed by post-colonial critiques. The women in this study are treated as social agents not as victims of men, and of economic and political trends. The women formulate strategies aimed at influencing or shaping the social system in which they are a part. The women’s agency resides in their individual and communal endeavours and is constantly reinvented in the context of political and social change. This research is an analysis of the experiences of 38 women born, raised and partly schooled in Kilome division, Makueni district. It focuses on the educational experiences of rural women living in two villages and a small town in Kilome division, Kenya. I use the women’s discourse to critique the public discourse on education articulated in policy documents produced in the last 30 years since independence in 1963. This study illustrates how women in Kenya have been largely absent at the national level where educational policies are formulated. Policy making has remained male dominated. Policy makers, charged with structuring and restructuring education to meet the country’s development needs, continue to limit women’s agency to the private sphere. The formulation of policies from the male perspective has intensified the public and private dichotomy. Absent in the public discourse on education has been the discussion of how gender, a social construction, has influenced opportunities available to men and women in colonial and post-colonial Kenya. Colonial gender constructions of femininity have continued to limit educational opportunities made available to women in post-colonial Kenya. The Kenyan women in this study are cognizant of how these gendered assumptions shaped, and continue to shape, women’s educational and employment opportunities. They re-negotiate and resist these gendered assumptions and they have become intervention agents for their children’s education. The women’s agency, however, is limited by their lack of economic power. The interplay between gendered cultural assumptions about femininity and the increased costs of schooling imposed by policy makers continue to have a negative impact on women’s education.

This study examines women’s experiences of formal education in Kenya. The study aims at making visible the cultural, historical, economic and political factors that shaped, and continue to shape, women’s educational and employment opportunities. It also highlights women’s agency exemplified in their struggle to provide their children, and particularly their daughters, with educational opportunities. The study draws attention to the gender and power issues that limit women’s participation in the public sphere. These are issues that policy makers, politicians, and development agents have not and still do not adequately address. The study employs post-positivist research methodologies, particularly feminist methodologies informed by post-colonial critiques. The women in this study are treated as social agents not as victims of men, and of economic and political trends. The women formulate strategies aimed at influencing or shaping the social system in which they are a part. The women’s agency resides in their individual and communal endeavours and is constantly reinvented in the context of political and social change. This research is an analysis of the experiences of 38 women born, raised and partly schooled in Kilome division, Makueni district. It focuses on the educational experiences of rural women living in two villages and a small town in Kilome division, Kenya. I use the women’s discourse to critique the public discourse on education articulated in policy documents produced in the last 30 years since independence in 1963. This study illustrates how women in Kenya have been largely absent at the national level where educational policies are formulated. Policy making has remained male dominated. Policy makers, charged with structuring and restructuring education to meet the country’s development needs, continue to limit women’s agency to the private sphere. The formulation of policies from the male perspective has intensified the public and private dichotomy. Absent in the public discourse on education has been the discussion of how gender, a social construction, has influenced opportunities available to men and women in colonial and post-colonial Kenya. Colonial gender constructions of femininity have continued to limit educational opportunities made available to women in post-colonial Kenya. The Kenyan women in this study are cognizant of how these gendered assumptions shaped, and continue to shape, women’s educational and employment opportunities. They re-negotiate and resist these gendered assumptions and they have become intervention agents for their children’s education. The women’s agency, however, is limited by their lack of economic power. The interplay between gendered cultural assumptions about femininity and the increased costs of schooling imposed by policy makers continue to have a negative impact on women’s education. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

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This research, An Exploration of Women's Transformation through Distance Learning in Kenya, applied Mezirow's theory of transformative learning to investigate how distance learning impacted on women's views about themselves and their position in society. This was done by examining whether distance learning enables women to acquire new self-perceptions about themselves and leads them to challenge the status quo and take action in order to improve their status in society. Three distance learning programmes were studied: the B.Ed. programme at the Faculty of External Studies at the University of Nairobi, Theological Education by Extension, and the Co-operative College of Kenya. This research was motivated through my own biography, with the purpose of identifying and encouraging distance learning practices that promote women's transformation. The research also hoped to draw attention to the study of women's issues in distance learning, as an area that has not attracted much attention in Kenya and to generate information which can be used to inform the use of distance learning methods in a way that favours women. Biographical methods of research were used. This involved listening to women's learning stories, noting their reasons for coming back to study, the barriers that they encountered as they studied and the coping strategies that they used to overcome the barriers. In addition, other methods were used to supplement the biographical data collected from the women. These included focus group discussions, observation and documentary evidence. The approach to data analysis was based on the use of hermeneutics methods of data interpretation. The themes and concepts that emerged from this process were compared with themes and concepts generated through other methods of data collection. The main findings were that distance learning, though based on alternative forms of provision, does lead to transformation, however, women from the three programmes experienced diverse levels of transformation. The B.Ed.programme with its face-to-face component and women with higher education had greater impact on women's transformation than other programmes. Although the TEE programme had face-to-face interaction, their curriculum, which reinforced the negative gender stereotypes in society and does not lead to recognised certificates, could not allow them to achieve this experience. The Coop programme, without the face-to-face arrangement had the lowest transformative effects on women. On the basis of these findings, it was recommended that more distance learning programmes be designed, with increased use of face-to-face components in order to help women achieve transformation. The findings and the discussions thereof also show that prior level of education had far reaching effects on the levels of transformation that women achieved. This led to the recommendation that women's education should be encouraged and the society should be sensitised about the value of educating women. Distance learning also enabled women to achieve economic empowerment, in terms of promotions, new jobs and increased salaries; however this was only noted in the B.Ed. and Coop programmes. The TEE programme, being a church programme had no economic benefits for its women learners. The women in the TEE programme were not happy with the present arrangement and were, therefore, calling for a review of the programme. The findings also showed that women's transformation is not being fully achieved because of non- supportive facilities and the use of learning materials, which reinforce the negative gender stereotypes in society. Therefore, to make distance learning more accessible to women learners and more transformational, the research recommended changes geared towards the creation of women-friendly facilities and learning materials. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

Global consensus on the importance of gender equity in education is perhaps one of the greatest agreements reached in the twentieth century. However, for countries in the sub Saharan African region where disparities of gender are wide and primary education takes priority, secondary education continues to remain in the periphery. As countries make progress towards the attainment of Universal Primary Education (UPE), the concerns for gender equity and equality have become associated with school access and pupil retention. Yet, patterns and trends in school enrollment suggest that disparities of gender are more complex. As lessons are learned from the achievements and challenges of attaining UPE, it is increasingly apparent that gender disparities within education occur in, within and beyond access to schooling. In other words, the challenge of making education gender equal goes beyond school access and school enrollment. Kenya is a signatory to the 1990 Jomtein Declaration on Education For All (EFA). It is also among the few countries in the sub Saharan Africa region with a significantly reduced gender gap in primary and secondary education. This is in tandem with the third of the eight Millennium Development Goals whose aims bear a broad social and economic development agenda. While education equity is important in Kenya and tremendous progress has been made in primary education, beyond the attainment of Universal Primary Education (UPE) there is an even more significant target; gender equity in education both in primary and secondary education by 2015. The attainment of this target requires more than access to schooling and for this reason it poses great challenges to governments and schools. In light of the progress made in Kenya and the need for more equitable education beyond primary education, this study conceives a need for an incisive examination of education equity priority areas in Kenya. The study argues on the need for a shift of concern and debate from primary education to secondary education because the gains of UPE only become meaningful when education equity is secured in secondary education. The study underscores that beyond school access and retention, education output and outcomes need to become prominent variables because they gauge trends and patterns and the quality of gains made where education is claimed to be both accessible and equitable. Using case study method, the study makes a critical interpretation of the schooling experiences, educational choices, preferences and aspirations of girls taking secondary education in single-sex schools in Murang’a district, Kenya. The study shows that girls schooling experiences are not homogenous and that there are contradictions in the ways that girls experience their schooling and make educational choices. It also shows that girls do not necessarily stand good chances with their education simply because they are enrolled in single-sex schools. The study reveals individual subjectivities and schooling culture to be at the centre of the differences between schools and the schooling experiences that girls have. The two have impact on how girls perceive themselves and their abilities, the preferences they nurture and the educational choices they make. The study draws attention to nuances in access and equity within girls’ education. It draws out issues and nuances linked to gender access, equity and equality with respect to school, teacher and subject access. Though the study is not generaliseable, it shows that in contexts where female access and survival is secured, there is need for attention to be paid to the environments that nurture educational choices and preferences so that the high rates in school access become translated into equally high educational output and outcomes.