EXPLORING THE ROLE OF EXTRA CURRICULA MATHS CAMPS AND CLUBS IN KENYA AND BEYOND

As in many countries, Mathematics is on average the lowest performing subject in the Kenyan end of school exam. It is in fact the single greatest barrier to students achieving the grades needed to get government scholarships to university. This problem has persisted despite long running in-service teacher training initiatives to address the issue. For the last four years Maseno University, Kenya, has been running a Maths camp bringing together both international and local, lecturers and teachers to engage secondary students in the subject through puzzles, games, technology and extra curricula Mathematics. This paper presents some of the lessons learned from this experience as well as how the thinking has evolved to scale out to more students through school maths clubs. The paper will question how sustainable systemic change might be achieve through small innovations that have the possibility to 'go viral'. A case will be made that there are changes happening in Kenyan education which might create a window of opportunity for such innovation to prosper. Finally it will be mentioned how the camps have already spread to Ethiopia, Ghana and the UK, illustrating the potential for innovation in such low resource environments to have global impact.