Fafi constituency Member of Parliament Salah Yakub launched a milk programme for schoolchildren to boost school enrollment in the area.
Yakub said over 4000 primary and Junior Secondary school children in all 28 primary schools in the constituency will benefit from two packets of 200 milk a day for the five school days of the week.
The programme comes barely a week after the MP launched a zero fees programme for secondary schools to ensure a 100 percent transition and that no student would fail to go to school for lack of fees.
Speaking during the event held at Kamuthe Primary School, Yakub urged the government to adopt a similar programme for all primary schools, which he said would not only improve school enrollment but also improve the health of the children.
“The country’s resources are shared according to the population. The teachers here and the capitation funding by the Ministry of Education are brought according to the number of pupils. If we have fewer children, we will have fewer teachers and less funding,” Yakub said.
“We want the government to supplement our efforts so that the children in this region and the entire country can have strengthened health systems and maybe reduce the cost of universal health care by building a healthy society,” he added.
Yakub said that it was better to build patriotism in children by offering such services to them from a tender age.
“We grew up singing about the milk which was brought by the late former President Daniel Moi. We were happy about it and today, everyone remembers that. We can still do something for our children now to build them such that even in old age, they will remember,” he noted.
Bura East Deputy County Commissioner Thomas Bett warned the teachers and the board of management against selling or diverting elsewhere the milk meant for children, warning that action would be taken against any culprit found.
“The chiefs and teachers have a responsibility to ensure that this milk is only given to the school-going children. We don’t want to see this milk out there by other people or hear stories that the store has been broken into and the milk has been stolen,” Bett said.
By Erick Kyalo
