A gender analysis of Grade 6 learners who will sit for the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) has revealed disparities in their ability to read a Grade 3-appropriate English text for comprehension, based on school type and location.
Findings from Usawa Africa’s Second Gender Equality in and through Education Status Report indicate that across both public and private schools, in urban and rural areas, more Grade 6 boys than girls are unable to read a Grade 3-appropriate English text for comprehension.
“Across both urban and rural geographies, more Grade 6 boys than girls are unable to read for comprehension a Grade 3 appropriate English story,” reads the report in part.
Grade 6 Boys Lag Behind Girls in Reading Comprehension of Grade 3 English Texts
The report further shows that fewer Grade 6 boys than girls attending both private and refugee community primary schools are unable to read a Grade 3-appropriate English story for comprehension.
At the same time, more Grade 6 boys than girls attending public primary schools are unable to read a Grade 3-appropriate English story for comprehension.
In refugee community schools, nearly half of Grade 6 girls are unable to read a Grade 3-appropriate English story for comprehension.
These findings point to persistent gender differences in foundational literacy skills among KPSEA candidates.
The analysis further reveals that KPSEA candidates face wider achievement gaps in rural areas compared to urban settings.
In rural schools, the performance gap in favor of Grade 6 girls compared to their male counterparts is greater, highlighting persistent inequalities in foundational literacy outcomes linked to both gender and location of residence.
In addition, a separate gender-disaggregated analysis of Grade 4 learners shows similar learning gaps when literacy and numeracy skills are combined.
The analysis assessed learners’ ability to both solve a Grade 3-appropriate numeracy problem and read a Grade 3-appropriate English story for comprehension, by type of school attended.
Overall, only 19 in 100 Grade 4 boys and 22 in 100 Grade 4 girls can both read a Grade 3 English story for comprehension and solve a Grade 3 numeracy problem.
The findings further show that girls in private primary schools outperform boys by a larger margin than in public primary schools, suggesting that school type also shapes learning outcomes.
In refugee communities, 14 in 100 boys and 9 in 100 girls meet the benchmark for both reading comprehension and numeracy.
This pattern differs from non-refugee schools, where girls generally perform better than boys in both learning areas.
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Gender Gap Persists as Grade 4 Girls Outperform Boys in English and Maths
In urban areas, 31 in 100 Grade 4 learners can both read and comprehend a Grade 3-appropriate English story and solve a Grade 3-appropriate numeracy problem.
Meanwhile, in rural areas, the figure stands at 28 in 100 Grade 4 learners who can meet the same benchmark.
Across both urban and rural settings, Grade 4 girls outperform their male counterparts in English and mathematics proficiency.
Findings from two logistic regression models, fitted to learning outcomes in English and numeracy among children aged 10–15 years (both in and out of school) and those enrolled in Grades 3 to 9 up to age 17 years, using household-level data, show several key patterns influencing learning outcomes.
The results indicate that children’s odds of achieving better learning outcomes in numeracy and English literacy increase by 13% and 7%, respectively, for each additional year of age.
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Girls Have Higher Odds of Better Learning Outcomes Than Boys in Numeracy and English
A key gender finding shows that a girl’s odds of achieving better learning outcomes in numeracy and English literacy are 28% and 25% higher than a boy’s, respectively, reinforcing the observed performance gap between boys and girls in foundational learning.
School type also plays a significant role. A child attending a private school has 40% and 49% higher odds of achieving better learning outcomes in numeracy and English literacy, respectively, than a child in a public school.
Early childhood education is also strongly associated with performance. A child who attended pre-primary school has 56% and 37% higher odds of achieving better learning outcomes in numeracy and English literacy, respectively, than a child who did not.
The education level of the household head shows mixed effects: where higher education levels are generally associated with better learning outcomes, though the effect is not statistically significant at any level for English.
In contrast, a child whose mother has a university degree or higher has more than double the odds of achieving better learning outcomes in numeracy and English literacy than a child whose mother has at most primary education.
Household size is negatively associated with learning outcomes. Each additional household member reduces the odds of a child achieving better numeracy and English literacy outcomes by 7% and 9 percent, respectively.
Wealth status also shows clear effects. Compared to a child from a poor household, a child from a middle-income household has 16% and 19% higher odds of achieving better numeracy and English literacy outcomes, respectively.
A child from a rich household has 38% and 47% higher odds of achieving better numeracy and English literacy outcomes, respectively.
That’s why a strong family foundation is so important; children have much better access to knowledge and systems. Their opportunities are also much broader.