Oh! So we have been under-reporting Nairobis primary school enrolment rates?

Progress towards universal primary education by 2015 is monitored by primary school enrolment rates survival rates to grade 5 and youth literacy rates. For the period 2000-2004 official statistics show Nairobis primary school gross and net enrolment rates as being much lower than any other province in Kenya. Nairobis informal settlements (slums) are estimated to be home to over 50% of the citys population and are largely served by low cost private community and non-formal schools managed by individual entrepreneurs communities and non-governmental organizations. This paper examines Nairobis slum and non-slum primary school enrolment rates and their under-reporting in government statistics. The study was conducted in two slum settlements (Korogocho and Viwandani) as well as in two non-slum sites (Jericho and Harambee) in Nairobi. A total of 13882 children aged 5-19 years were identified in 2005 regardless of whether or not they were in school in the four geographically-defined study sites.The study used retrospective schooling history data for six years (2000-2005) collected within the longitudinal framework of the Nairobi Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System. Data were collected on a range of issues in modular form using five questionnaires each addressing a specific theme. For children aged 5 6 7 8 and 9 years in 2005 only data for one (2005) two (2005 and 2004) three (2005-2003) four (2005-2002) and five (2005-2001) years were collected starting in 2005 respectively. For those aged 10 to 19 years data for six years (2000-2005) were collected. We use these data to calculate the gross and net enrolment rates as well as the Gender Parity Index (GPI) and rate of underreporting of these enrolment rates in government statistics for the four sites in 2005. The results show high gross enrolment ratios of 100.7% and 106.8% for the slum and non-slum sites respectively for 2005. The net enrolment ratio is equally high at 83.3% and 94.5% for the slum and non-slum areas for thesame year. These are however under-reported in government statistics by up to 23.3% for all the four sites. At an average of 1.08 for the period 2000-2005 the GPI values in the slums are in favor of girls while the opposite is true for the non-slum sites at an average GPI value of 0.93 in favor of boys. This evidence shows that Nairobis enrolment rates are quite high contrary to official statistics which show these as much lower compared to the rest of the country. We largely attribute these low enrolment rates to under-reporting. (authors)