The Jacobs Foundation and the Financial Sector Deeping Trust Kenya (FSD) are pleased to publish the “Getting an education in rural Kenya” paper. The Jacobs Foundation commissioned this report to better understand the unique challenges that smallholder farming households face with respect to financing their children’s education.
This report seeks to depict the Kenyan education environment from the point of view of the household, with specific emphasis on rural smallholder farming households. It seeks to determine how much Kenyan families actually spend on education, whether in private or public school systems, what percentage of income is spent on education as a proportion of total household income, what value Kenyans in the study place on education, and what financial tools Kenyans deploy in obtaining an education for their children. The findings in this paper are based on the Kenyan Financial Diaries. Financial Diaries are a methodological tool that aims to capture fine-grained information on the financial lives of households.