school. At the end of primary school, pupils take a high stakes primary school leaving exam, the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam, which tests knowledge in math, Kiswahili, English, science, social studies, and religious education. Performance on this exam determines which secondary school, if any, admits the student. At the time of the study, primary school education consisted of eight grades, known as standards. Pupils who completed Standard 8 could sit for the KCPE. The Kenyan school year runs from January to November and each academic year is divided into three terms. Pre-primary schooling in Kenya consisted of three grades - Baby class, Nursery class, and Pre-unit - intended to serve three-, four- and five-year old pupils, respectively. Public school teachers are employed by the national government, are subject to civil service protection, and earn much more relative to GNP per capita than those in higher income countries. This is likely in part because they are much more educated than the typical worker, typically having specialized post-secondary education, and because they have historically had a strong union, with salaries for public-school teachers several times as large as those for teachers in private schools. The majority of teachers are employed through the Teachers Service Commission (TSC). The minimum requirement for public primary school teachers is a certificate in primary education, which is a two-year (plus three-week practicum) post-secondary credential. Private school education has expanded rapidly in recent decades. Approximately 33 percent of pre-primary school pupils and 16 percent of primary pupils in Kenya were enrolled in private schools (Ministry of Education, 2016a).9 Aside from a few elite primary schools, most are “mom and pop” operations, with a single establishment, rather than chains. Historically, many pre-schools were organized informally at the local community level and therefore did not fit neatly into the categories of “public” and “private”. In particular, while many pre-primary schools met on the premises of public primary schools, teachers were not centrally hired civil servants paid by the national government, and instead supported themselves by charging parents modest fees. With the adoption of the new Kenyan constitution in 2010, pre-school was declared a responsibility of the new county governments. However, there is still substantial heterogeneity in the extent to which already existing pre-schools have been formalized (Devercelli 9
The increase may have been driven partly by the Free Primary Education Program of 2003 that led to higher pupil-teacher ratios and fewer resources available per pupil, which, in turn, may have led some families to seek out private schools. (Lucas and Mbiti, 2012; Bold et al., 2014)
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