Most Kenyan schools still burn wood because it is cheap, familiar, and often provided by parents as part of school fees.
Smoke rises from the kitchen at 4am each morning, hours
before the breakfast bell rings. The long-serving cook, Kimani (who insists we use
only his surname), crouches over the fire, then stirs vats of porridge and
githeri that will keep hundreds of pupils fed through the day.
He is already used to the sting in his eyes and the itching of
his throat. By midday, Kimani and his three colleagues are coughing, some
nursing pounding headaches, others wiping away tears from smoke that refuses to
clear. He has worked as a cook in this school near Kikuyu town for 15 years
now.
These [mostly] men and women, who rarely appear in
photographs when schools post impressive results, are paying a hidden price to
keep students in school.
Researchers from the Kenya Medical Research Institute
(Kemri) say most school cooks in Kenya breathe dangerously polluted air, experience constant
respiratory symptoms, and have a lifetime of exposure to conditions that could
shorten their lives.
Together with other researchers from Rwanda, they assessed
schools in Kenya and Rwanda. They found that Kenyan school cooks are exposed to
levels of fine smoke particles nearly 20 times above the World Health
Organization’s daily safe limit.
All of the 11 schools visited, except one (charcoal), used
firewood to prepare food. School menus in Kenya primarily consisted of staple foods, including githeri, ugali, beans, and vegetables. Such staple foods typically take
longer to cook and require more wood consumption. This exposes cooks to more
smoke, the researchers explained.
The cooks wore small monitors on their chests to measure
pollution levels during an average eight-hour school day.
The researchers said: “In school kitchens, mean PM2.5
concentrations exceeded the 24-h WHO-IT1 target by 11.9 and 19.6 times in
Rwanda and Kenya, respectively and also exceeded the annual WHO-IT1 (Interim Target 1 for air quality).
Similarly, mean carbon dioxide exposures in kitchens were above the 24-h
WHO-IT1 target, exceeding it by 1.3 and 8.3 times in Rwanda and Kenya,
respectively.”
PM2.5 are tiny
dust-like particles that are small enough to get deep into the lungs and cause
serious health problems.
The study was led by Willah Nabukwangwa, a biostatistician
at Kemri, and R’ev’erien Rutayisire from the Rwanda Biomedical Center. It is
published in the current issue of the Environmental Research journal.
The data shared by Nabukwangwa and her colleagues indicates that 75 per cent
of Kenyan cooks reported headaches in the past month. Nearly eight in ten said
their eyes burned or watered, and more than seven in ten coughed constantly or
battled sore throats. Two-thirds admitted to being burned or scalded at work,
most often while wrestling with firewood-fed stoves.
Many described their workplaces as unbearably smoky and suffocatingly
hot. Some said they escaped outdoors just to breathe and reported that headaches
and coughing followed them home. For them, the school kitchen is not a symbol
of nourishment but a place of daily sacrifice.
Students are also affected by the smoke. Smoke monitors
installed inside classrooms closest to kitchens showed air pollution levels
consistently above safe thresholds.
Among the 302 Kenyan students surveyed, nearly two-thirds
reported headaches, more than half had coughed in the past month, and four in
ten said their eyes were irritated.
The authors warned: “The elevated PM2.5 concentrations in
school kitchens, combined with the relatively low ambient PM2.5 levels in
playgrounds, indicate that cooking activities are the primary source of air
pollution in the school environment rather than traffic or other nearby
regional sources.”
Household air pollution already kills 24,000 Kenyans every
year, according to the 2024 World Health Organisation (WHO) report on combating
household air pollution (HAP). Children
are especially vulnerable, with smoke exposure linked to stunted lung growth
and missed school days.
In December 2024, President William Ruto announced that all
schools should switch to liquefied petroleum gas by the end of 2025, but this has not
happened yet.
“We are launching a government project that will ensure
11,000 schools in the country are connected to gas to end the use of firewood
and charcoal,” Ruto said.
The President said the programme would help in conserving
trees, ensuring clean energy and improving health outcomes.
“Now we can monitor transitioning all schools from using
biomass, charcoal and firewood to using clean gas,” he said.
Most Kenyan schools still burn wood because it is cheap,
familiar, and often provided by parents as part of school fees.
Nabukwangwa and her colleagues said schools should actually
move to LPG quickly.
“As schools are the second-largest consumers of biomass
energy after households, supporting their transitioning to clean cooking fuels,
such as LPG or electric cooking, could lead to significant health improvements
for both staff and learners, enhancing their overall health and well-being, and
have climate co-benefits due to reduced consumption of unsustainable biomass,”
they said.
Their study is titled, “Air pollution and health in Rwandan
and Kenyan schools cooking with polluting fuels: a cross-sectional impact
study.”