Reflections of Teachers in the FPE Era

The free primary education policy has led to a significant increasein primary school enrollment in the country, from 8.6 million children in 2008 to 9.9million in 2012. Increased enrollment complicated the work of teachers in the classroomsin the wake of FPE. This article seeks to document the challenges that teachers face inKenyan classrooms across six urban sites in Kenya. Data come from the Education ResearchProgram at the African Population and Health Research Center, collected in the months ofJanuary to March 2012. This article presents data from Focus Group Discussions, whichwere analyzed using thematic qualitative analysis. Results show that teachers across thesix urban sites faced numerous challenges, with the most striking one being the processof evaluation by district quality assurance officers, who need to take intoconsideration the circumstances in which teachers teach in the schools across thecountry. Overall, the study called for the need to take the contexts of the respectiveschools into consideration even as they visit schools to ensure that teachers adhere tothe quality assurance and standards procedures. This is because different schools havedifferent teachers implementing the curricula