Photo by Hussein Abdullahi/KNA
Coast Regional Commissioner (RC) John Elungata has urged wananchi to live up to their responsibilities and give their children the best of education.
The regional administrator said education remains the key to national development and that it was the only legacy parents could give their children to secure a better future.
The RC said the government was doing everything possible to provide the necessary infrastructure that would help the learners acquire basic education.
“As the government does its part, parents must make sure that their children attended and stayed in school,” he said adding that children were a national resource that need to be nurtured.
He directed chiefs and their assistants in Kwale County to trace all 2018 class eight candidates who failed to join form one in 2019.
Elungata directed the grassroots administrators to look out for those who failed to transit to secondary schools in their localities for whatever reason in a bid to help the Ministry of Education achieve its 100 per cent transition policy.
According to the Ministry of Education, six counties of Mombasa, Lamu, Kwale, Samburu, Isiolo and Tana River registered below 70 per cent transition.
He said the local administrators should stand firm on the issue of education noting that children have a right to education regardless of the economic status of their parents or guardians.
He asked the chiefs and their assistants to ensure that children of school going age were not involved in child labour or were loitering at the beaches.
The senior administrator was speaking on Saturday at Dr. Babla Diani Girls Secondary School in Ukunda Township during a 100 percent transition stakeholders meeting.
Elungata warned school heads against sanctioning unnecessary school levies that deny students a chance to proceed to secondary education.
He said the government will not relent in its push to ensure children benefited from the free and compulsory basic education saying the measures were needed to help the country transform its economy and living standards of its people.
The RC said that the deteriorating standards of education in the region would be reversed if education stakeholders worked together.
Coast Regional Education Coordinator Hassan Duale who accompanied the RC said Kwale County is among the counties that have registered less than 70 per cent admission.
“Some 1500 class eight candidates in 2018 out of the 17,298 who sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams in Kwale cannot be accounted for,” he said adding that LungaLunga and Msambweni sub-counties were the most affected.
The regional educational official called on parents to be actively involved in the progress of their children in schools, further urging parents to embrace the new education reforms with the seriousness it deserves noting that the ongoing education reforms would be a mirage if parents fail to send their children to school.
Kwale County Director of Education Jane Njogu said retrogressive cultural practices like female circumcisions, early and forced marriages continue to force girls out of school in the region.
Njogu said education officials in the region will not rest unless all the 17,298 candidates who sat KCPE in 2018 join form one.
She urged parents to send all their children of school-going age to school to ensure the success of the free and compulsory basic education.
By Hussein Abdullahi
