Chapter 7: Entering the Quagmire: Examining State-NGO Interaction in the Provision of Education for Street Girls in Kenya

Four decades after independence, the Kenyan state is still unable to universalize educational access and redress the inequities in the educational system. The reversal of the impressive quantitative gains made after independence in education is evident in declining enrollment rates and an increase in the numbers of out of school children. Policy makers, development agents and educators have failed to address adequately and challenge gender and power issues that limit females’ participation in education and in the labour market. Poverty, ignorance and disease far from being eliminated grow more menacing than ever. The rigid and costly formal system is not adequately reaching populations including urban poor children especially girls. To date, initiatives to provide education for marginalized children have been abandoned to non-governmental organizations and most are small-scale programs that struggle in isolation on the margins of the formal system.