Tracking (education) - A Small Act and Similarities To Class-based Tracking Abroad

A Small Act and Similarities To Class-based Tracking Abroad

The 2010 HBO documentary, A Small Act, documented the difficulty of Kenyan students being able to afford attending secondary schools. These elite schools were viewed as pathway to law school, medical school, and other forms of advanced education. Students who were kicked out of school for insufficient funds were fated to lives of poverty. In Kenya, having only a primary school education prepared one for menial labor, while secondary school equated to future social mobility for poor Kenyan children.

The Kenyan system of education closely mirrored tracking in American high schools where students in college-preparatory tracks were able to attend four-year universities immediately after graduation and vocationally tracked students could only enter community colleges and technical schools. Middle-class Kenyans were more likely to complete secondary schools and attend college, similar to college-preparatory students in the United States. Despite displaying promising academic ability, both low track students in the United States and poor children in Kenya can be at disadvantages in their educational advancement. For those in the United States, they acquire vocational skills at the sacrifice of reaching their full academic potential and the job security of a college education. The prospects for poor children in Kenya are even worse, having acquired few job skills in their primary school education.

Poor children in Kenya did have the opportunity to gain admission to secondary schools through merit scholarships, which required that students attained satisfactory scores on entrance examinations. There were indeed opportunities for bright poor children, but merit scholarships were limited in the number of students who could be awarded. In the United States, bright students in vocational tracks can enroll in two-year universities, but they lack the scholarships and post-secondary funding of their college-preparatory counterparts. Vocational students negotiate with the burden of scant financial support for college, and poor Kenyan children have the stress of passing entrance examinations even if they have academic ability similar to that of middle-class children or those in college-preparatory tracks.