The Head teachers, chiefs and their assistants in Meru County have been instructed to establish the whereabouts of pupils who had registered but failed to turn up for this year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations.
Addressing the media in a Meru resort on Thursday, Meru County Commissioner (CC), Wilfred Nyagwanga said the whereabouts of these examination boycotters should be pursued to establish whether they may have been subjected to retrogressive cultural practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or early marriages.
“There is all the reasons to suspect that these pupils could have been subjected to retrogressive cultural practices because it is unconceivable to understand why one would register for an examination only to boycott it when times comes,” exclaimed the CC.
Nyagwanga further disclosed that FGM was mainly carried out during school holidays and that the few female circumcisers still in existence were so illiterate and merciless to comprehend the value of education and the eminent need to sit for national examinations.
He said if established that those who failed to turn up for the national examinations had been subjected to the retrogressive cultural practices, the law would take its course and the parents and the circumcisers would be prosecuted.
This was in tandem with the words of his Deputy for Igembe South Sub- county, James Kosgei who also oversees Igembe Central Sub-County who had said that anyone found practicing the retrogressive cultural practice would face the full force of the law.
“The circumcisers and parents of the victims will be arrested and prosecuted and I can assure you that they will receive harsh penalties because the government wishes to bring the vice to an end,” the Deputy County Commissioner (DCC) said.
Kosgei said FGM goes hand in hand with early marriages which could be the force behind a number of registered KCPE candidates from the two sub-counties failing to turn up for the examinations during the last national examinations.
He called on parents to monitor the whereabouts of their children during this long holiday adding that most girls faced the knife under the patronage of their aunts and other unscrupulous relatives which could be curbed through the help of their parents.
By Kamanja Maeria
