OPINION: We cannot let hundreds of thousands of learners become a lost generation

As Kenya welcomes a new academic year, we should be celebrating the potential of our young people. Instead, too many families are waking up to the harsh reality that education, once a pathway to dignity, opportunity, and national progress, is slipping out of reach for too many children.

Daily Nation last week reported that hundreds of thousands of senior school learners were still at home as term began, unable to access the next stage of their education because of financial barriers and systemic bottlenecks. 

Behind every one of those numbers is a future scientist, a community leader, a health worker, a teacher, or an entrepreneur whose potential contribution to Kenya’s success is being quietly extinguished. At home right now is the Kenyan that will revolutionize the Silicon Savannah.

Kenya’s transition to senior school is meant to open doors to pathways that match students’ strengths and interests. But the reality on the ground is painfully different. Many families are struggling to pay fees or buy uniforms; others are still grappling with delayed or unclear placement results. In some regions, learners have been reassigned or left without placements altogether, leaving parents anxious and children uncertain of their futures. 

For too many Kenyan families, the difference between a chance at success and being left behind comes down to something as simple and as unjust as a uniform or the inability to pay a fee.

My organization, Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO), has activated our education interventions at scale. We refuse to wait for tragedy before we act. For the 2026 academic year, we awarded more than 6,500 full scholarships to students from informal settlements and marginalised counties across Kenya. 

Our community libraries and partnerships with chiefs and local leaders are also mobilising grassroots support to ensure learners are in classrooms, not idle at home. This is the heart of our work under this initiative: strengthen community-led systems that ensure every child has the opportunity to learn.

But SHOFCO cannot, nor should it, solve this alone. The scale of the challenge demands a national response. We must treat this as a crisis that calls for collective action from government, civil society, private sector partners, and every Kenyan community. It matters for all of us.

We must make sure every child has the option of day secondary school - no child should be turned away from day secondary school because of costs or lack of uniform.

There should be a community-led approach to this matter as well. Neighbours helping neighbours, through mentorship programs, resource sharing, and volunteer advocacy, can bridge gaps that formal systems cannot fill alone. We know this is already happening in many informal settlements; we should empower it, not ignore it.

I am stepping up and making a commitment from SHOFCO to educate over 6,500 of these learners in addition to what our members are doing at the grassroots level to get these learners in school. I challenge and invite others to join me in adopting this generation and making sure they aren’t being left behind. If you can, fund boarding. If that’s not available to you, help your neighbour. 

This moment is supposed to be about celebrating the start of the academic year for our youth. Instead, it is offering an opportunity for Kenya to reaffirm its commitment to education for all. If we fail to act now, we risk consigning a generation to lost potential. Let this issue be a defining one in public discourse and, if political manifestos are shaped around it, let 2026 be the year that education equity moved from aspiration to achievement.

We can do better. We must do better. For every child waiting at home, let us show that their future matters.

Dr. Kennedy Odede is the CEO of SHOFCO, and the 2025 UN Nelson Mandela Prize Laureate