- A three-year UK study by Impetus and Public First has found growing scepticism among English teachers toward hardline attendance policies, prompting comparisons to Kenya’s own approach.
- Poverty, long distances, domestic responsibilities, bullying and disability are some of the drivers of absenteeism among Kenyan learners.
- There should be early identification, stronger parental engagement, school feeding programmes and more relevant, engaging CBE teaching as solutions to reduce chronic absenteeism.
By Hillary Muhalya
British teachers are questioning whether forcing every child into school every day is enough to solve the deeper problem of learner disengagement. The debate is exposing an uncomfortable reality for education systems everywhere: a child can be physically present in school and still be absent from learning.
A three-year research programme by youth charity Impetus and policy and polling research firm Public First, involving in-depth conversations with 62 secondary-school staff in England, found growing scepticism among some teachers about hardline attendance policies. The findings, reported on September 10, 2026, suggest that some teachers believe occasional absence may be less damaging than sustained disengagement, while fines and other punitive measures can sometimes damage relationships between schools and families.
The British experience should make Kenya pause. Kenya cannot afford to treat school attendance as merely a disciplinary statistic. Regular attendance is essential for learning, particularly under Competency-Based Education (CBE), where learners are expected to develop competencies progressively through participation, practice and continuous assessment. But insisting that every child must be physically present without asking why some children are absent risks addressing the symptom while leaving the real problem untouched.
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Understanding the Many Faces of Absenteeism
Not every absence tells the same story. For some Kenyan learners, absenteeism begins with poverty. A child may stay at home because there is no food, the family cannot afford basic school requirements or there is no money for transport. For others, the journey itself is the problem, since children in remote and pastoralist communities may walk several kilometres to school, with difficult terrain, weather and insecurity making regular attendance challenging. Some learners are also kept away by responsibilities that adults rarely see in attendance statistics, such as fetching water, caring for younger siblings, working to supplement family income or undertaking demanding domestic chores.
For adolescent learners, the causes can become even more complex. Teenage pregnancy, early parenthood, peer pressure and relationships can interrupt education. Bullying, harassment and an unsafe school environment can make a learner deliberately avoid the classroom, while family separation, domestic conflict, bereavement and other upheavals can equally push children away from school. Then there are learners whose absence may be connected to disability or special educational needs, where schools lacking appropriate facilities, assistive devices, specialised personnel or adequate support can turn attending school into an exhausting experience rather than an opportunity. Illness and inadequate access to healthcare can also interrupt schooling, while emotional and psychological difficulties may cause a learner to withdraw without necessarily telling anyone why.
And there is another cause that education policymakers must confront honestly: sometimes learners simply stop seeing value in school. When learning feels disconnected from their lives, talents and ambitions, disengagement can gradually become absenteeism. This is where Kenya’s Competency-Based Education faces one of its most important tests. CBE should not simply change curriculum terminology; it promises to make education more relevant, practical and responsive to the abilities of individual learners. A child who discovers an artistic talent, develops a technological skill, participates in a practical project, solves a real-life problem or discovers an entrepreneurial ability is more likely to develop a meaningful relationship with education.
Attendance is therefore partly a product of the quality of the educational experience. A learner can be physically present in school but mentally absent from learning, and that distinction should change how Kenya approaches absenteeism. This does not mean abandoning discipline; parents have a responsibility to ensure their children attend school, while schools have a duty to maintain accurate attendance records and intervene when learners deliberately stay away. Persistent truancy should not be normalised. But before a school labels a learner a truant, it should establish what lies behind the absence. A headteacher who discovers that a child is staying home because the family cannot provide food has found a welfare problem, not simply a discipline problem. A principal who discovers that a learner is avoiding school because of bullying has found a safeguarding problem. A teacher who identifies an unmet special educational need has found a support problem. Different causes require different solutions.
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How Kenya Can Reduce School Absenteeism
Reducing absenteeism requires a partnership between the learner, family, school, community and government; no single intervention will solve the problem. The first step should be early identification, with schools monitoring attendance closely and identifying patterns before occasional absence develops into chronic absenteeism. A learner who begins missing school repeatedly should attract attention immediately, not after disappearing from the education system.
Secondly, schools should strengthen parental engagement. Parents should not only be summoned when their children misbehave; schools should establish constructive partnerships with families and help parents understand how attendance affects learning and long-term outcomes. Thirdly, Kenya needs to strengthen school feeding programmes, particularly in areas where food insecurity is severe, since it is unreasonable to expect a hungry child to maintain consistent attendance and concentrate effectively in class.
The country should also improve guidance, counselling and mentorship, since adolescents facing emotional difficulties, peer pressure, bullying or family problems need trusted adults who can intervene before their challenges turn into permanent disengagement. Schools must become safer and more inclusive, with bullying, harassment and discrimination confronted firmly, while learners with disabilities and special educational needs receive appropriate support, accessible facilities and specialised assistance. For children who live far from school, communities and government should explore practical solutions such as improving local school access, transport arrangements and infrastructure. In areas where domestic responsibilities keep children away, social protection and community interventions can help reduce the burden placed on learners.
Teachers also need support. Attendance management should not become another enormous administrative burden placed on already stretched educators; digital attendance systems, where appropriate, can help schools identify patterns quickly, allowing teachers and administrators to spend more time on intervention rather than paperwork.
Making Classrooms Places Children Do Not Want to Miss
Most importantly, schools must make learning interesting, relevant and purposeful. This is where CBE can become part of the solution rather than merely another policy framework. Learners should be given opportunities to create, experiment, solve problems, develop talents and connect classroom competencies to the real world. A learner who sees school as a pathway to opportunity is more likely to attend than one who sees it as an endless routine of notes, punishment and examinations.
There is therefore a role for discipline, but it must be combined with relationships, early intervention and support. Sometimes the most effective intervention is not a warning letter; it is a conversation. Sometimes it is a home visit. Sometimes it is a school meal. Sometimes it is counselling. Sometimes it is specialised support. And sometimes it is simply an adult taking the time to ask a child, “What is making you not want to come to school?”
This also raises a serious question about the responsibilities placed on headteachers and principals. Should school leaders spend their time drowning in paperwork and chasing attendance figures, or should they have the space to lead, mentor learners, engage parents and address the causes of absenteeism? If educational leadership becomes dominated by compliance, the system risks losing sight of the human beings behind the statistics.
Kenya should learn from the British debate without necessarily copying Britain’s policies. The lesson is not that attendance enforcement is wrong; the lesson is that enforcement alone cannot solve disengagement. A learner who fears punishment may return to school temporarily, while a learner who feels safe, valued, supported and inspired is more likely to remain. Kenya therefore needs an attendance strategy that combines accountability with compassion.
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Parents must be held responsible for their children’s education. Schools must maintain discipline. But government must also address the conditions that make attendance difficult, including hunger, poverty, inadequate special-needs support, insecurity, poor sanitation, inadequate infrastructure and gaps in child and family services. Teachers cannot be expected to solve all these problems alone, nor should schools become the one-stop shop for every social crisis affecting children without receiving the personnel and resources required to respond.
The ultimate objective should not be to produce perfect attendance registers; it should be to produce engaged learners. Kenya should count attendance, but also understand it. It should demand responsibility, but also remove barriers. It should maintain discipline, but never allow punishment to replace compassion. Most importantly, CBE must make learning meaningful enough for children to see school not as a place they are forced to attend, but as a place where their abilities, ambitions and future are being built.
Britain’s attendance debate has therefore presented Kenya with a mirror. The question before us is not simply how to get more children into classrooms; it is how to make Kenyan classrooms places children do not want to miss. That is where the real attendance revolution must begin.
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