It is likely that this measure is being pushed by China in their bid to expand their global influence. Many such projects are being pursued right now in developed nations; one of them is probably pushing Mandarin as a second language.
In Kenya, that would be more like Mandarin as a fourth language. They commonly know their tribal language first, then Swahili and English, which are both official languages of Kenya. From fourth grade on English is the primary language used for teaching in school.
china has seemed to have recognized that chinese is too hard for most people to learn as a second language, and have been sponsoring efforts at establishing esperanto as an intl langauage
They’ve been sponsoring an Esperanto radio station for awhile (like half a century at least) but there haven’t been any increased pushes I’ve seen lately.
I have never heard about esperanto while in China, that was half of my lifetime, so I think there must be some exaggeration here. The efforts at establishing Confucius Institute branch schools all over the world to teach Mandarin I have clearly seen.