NYTimes: "In Africa, Free Schools Feed a Different Hunger"

Students throughout the Third World must be able to pay fees in order to attend primary school. In Kenya, the annual fee is $16, the equivalent of what an American family of three might pay for a meal together at McDonalds. Studies by the World Bank have shown that such fees are enough to keep many poor families from sending their children to school. political candidates in democratizing African countries been successful in generating popular support by promising to make school free to all. But as foreign correspondent for the New York Times Celia W. Drugger documents, 'free school' is anything but 'free and easy' for Kenyan teachers.