Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu has asked primary school heads not to turn away grade seven students who turn up without a new Junior Secondary School (JSS) uniform.
Speaking during Murang’a County education day on January 14, Machogu urged the teachers to be considerate and allow parents to buy the JSS uniform progressively saying that if the parents cannot afford the new uniform as schools reopen, the child should be allowed to use the grade 6 uniform because some parents are facing financial difficulties.
Machogu acknowledged that the children need the new uniform, but added that the lack of a new uniform should not deny them access to education as some parents cannot afford it at the moment.
“Cost of living has gone up and some parents have other children in secondary schools that need school uniforms too,” Machigu said.
“Let the child use the uniform they used in grade six until the parent can buy the new uniform,” CS Machogu added.
The CS also cautioned the school administrators against asking for money from parents for the construction of JSS classrooms saying that a total of 15000 classrooms will be constructed by the time children get to grade 9.
“Six thousand classrooms will be constructed using a conditional grant to the 290 constituencies while 9000 classrooms will be constructed using a Sh9 billion grant from the World Bank,” Machogu said.
He explained that in the last budget, the government allocated over Sh630 billion towards education which is 30 percent of the national budget adding that more funds were allocated to the sector in the supplementary budget.
“Over the last two weeks, Sh46 billion has been channeled towards education with Sh16 billion sent to secondary schools, while primary schools and JSS received Sh4.7 billion and 7.6 billion respectively,” He stated.
Meanwhile, CS Machogu asked parents to enroll those students who did not attain university entry grades at the various TVETs and polytechnics so that they can acquire professional skills to better their future noting that the government is putting in place decisive intentional and deliberate measures to create employment.
By Purity Mugo
