Miss Zomboko
JF-Expert Member
- May 18, 2014
- 4,599
- 9,532
The government has directed all County Commissioners to commence investigations on students who failed to report back to school and possible reasons, and put in place measures to have them resume.
Education Administrative Secretary Zack Kinuthia said the commissioners, by virtue of being the chairmen of county security committees, act as the President’s eye on the ground, hence best suited to undertake the task, including in private schools.
“In an advice by the president dated yesterday morning, all county commissioners are directed to use their ground networks that include the chiefs and their assistants to start filing the number of children that will not report back to school, reasons and action plan to have them back,” he said.
He said the Teachers Service Commission will also do its ‘stock taking’ and the two lists will be correlated and deductions made that will inform an action plan to ensure 100 per cent resumption of students.
“While there are some parents opposed to releasing their children to resume classes, especially those in boarding schools, we are also not blind to other challenges like teen pregnancies, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and early marriages playing part in the resumption slag,” he said.
He noted that the boy child too, might be affected with some having veered off to child labour, jail or just vanished to seek livelihoods. He noted that they should all be rounded up and put back to school, or juvenile schools for those who resist.
“The seriousness that we are attaching to 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary, and ensuring basic and mandatory education is ceilinged at secondary school is not to bendable or breakable…It remains exactly that,” he said.
“For instance, we have made it clear that all pregnant girls whom we estimate to be about 1,500 countrywide, resume classes as we continue reopening and where the deadline for full resumption is November 2,” he said.
He noted that such girls should be in class up to their seventh month of gestation and proceed on leave for eight months before readmission.
“It is government’s policy that pregnancy is not a disease…where it has happened we have dared say it is not a crime to be pregnant, the crime is how that pregnancy got to be…While we have collectively failed some of our girls as a society, we want to make it clear that after they are in mother ways, we will not tolerate discrimination and stigma to be accorded them,” he said.
He said all students scheduled to sit their national examinations will do so regardless of whether they will be mothers or pregnant.
Education Administrative Secretary Zack Kinuthia said the commissioners, by virtue of being the chairmen of county security committees, act as the President’s eye on the ground, hence best suited to undertake the task, including in private schools.
“In an advice by the president dated yesterday morning, all county commissioners are directed to use their ground networks that include the chiefs and their assistants to start filing the number of children that will not report back to school, reasons and action plan to have them back,” he said.
He said the Teachers Service Commission will also do its ‘stock taking’ and the two lists will be correlated and deductions made that will inform an action plan to ensure 100 per cent resumption of students.
Boarding schools
Mr Kinuthia said that by noon of day one, random checks had put resumption in primary schools at 58 per cent and 48 per cent in secondary schools.“While there are some parents opposed to releasing their children to resume classes, especially those in boarding schools, we are also not blind to other challenges like teen pregnancies, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and early marriages playing part in the resumption slag,” he said.
He noted that the boy child too, might be affected with some having veered off to child labour, jail or just vanished to seek livelihoods. He noted that they should all be rounded up and put back to school, or juvenile schools for those who resist.
“The seriousness that we are attaching to 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary, and ensuring basic and mandatory education is ceilinged at secondary school is not to bendable or breakable…It remains exactly that,” he said.
Pregnant girls
He asserted that it is incumbent upon the Interior ministry to support the Education ministry in ensuring all cases are evaluated and defined to give the government working theories in ensuring schools resume at 100 per cent capacity.“For instance, we have made it clear that all pregnant girls whom we estimate to be about 1,500 countrywide, resume classes as we continue reopening and where the deadline for full resumption is November 2,” he said.
He noted that such girls should be in class up to their seventh month of gestation and proceed on leave for eight months before readmission.
“It is government’s policy that pregnancy is not a disease…where it has happened we have dared say it is not a crime to be pregnant, the crime is how that pregnancy got to be…While we have collectively failed some of our girls as a society, we want to make it clear that after they are in mother ways, we will not tolerate discrimination and stigma to be accorded them,” he said.
He said all students scheduled to sit their national examinations will do so regardless of whether they will be mothers or pregnant.
