Usawa Agenda report exposes inequality in girls’ education in Kenya despite strong performance

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]News now, a new gender report by UWEZO Agenda has exposed deep-rooted inequalities that continue to lock thousands of girls out of quality education in Kenya. While girls are outperforming boys in literacy and numeracy at lower levels, the report reveals that girls' schools remain significantly under-resourced with fewer science laboratories, computer lessons, libraries, and examinable subjects compared to boys' schools. The report further paints a picture of systemic barriers that affect girls, especially those from poor, refugee, and marginalized communities. Teenage pregnancy, stigma, poverty, lack of menstrual hygiene facilities, and male-dominated school leadership continue to push girls to the margins, with out-of-school girls found to be 12 times more likely to become pregnant than those in school. The report was released on Tuesday at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development by the UWEZO Agenda, with stakeholders calling for deliberate efforts and commitment to correct the systemic failures.

[00:01:03]I'd like to invite Girls odds of achieving better learning outcomes in numeracy and English literacy are 28% and 25% respectively higher than a boys odds.

[00:01:17]And a child whose mother has a university degree or has more than double the odds of achieving better learning outcomes in numeracy and English literacy than his or her counterpart but whose mother has at most primary education. We were also looking at the risks that children face when they are not in school and we see that for instance, if a girl is not in school, she's 12 times as likely to get pregnant as her colleague who is in school. And and we think therefore that first and foremost, we need to redouble our effort to make sure that all children are in school because that is where they are safest. A policy cannot be made without evidence. For a long time we have been appropriating funds and we've been developing policies without having concrete evidence.

[00:02:09]Without having data.

[00:02:10]Without having information exactly on what has gone wrong where.

[00:02:16]So, a report like this by Ushawahi Agenda is giving us that data which provides us with that evidence.