- The county suffers from the problem of school dropouts or children not enrolled in school at all.
- The reasons include illiteracy among parents, poverty, the nomadic way of life, and retrogressive cultural practices.
Image: STEPHEN ASTARIKO
Education stakeholders in Garissa are now calling for concerted effortsto ensure 100 per cent enrolment of children in primary schools.
The county suffers from the problem of school dropouts or children not enrolled in school at all.
The reasons include illiteracy among parents, poverty, the nomadic way of life, retrogressive cultural practices like early marriage, and perennial droughts and flooding.
Image: STEPHEN ASTARIKO
Unicef education specialist Osman Mohamed told the Star that while a lot of gains have been made in boosting children in schools in the last six years, more needs to be done to ensure total success.
“As you know, Garissa is one of the counties with the highest number of out-of-school children, coming second after Mandera county. As per the 2019 census, the county is estimated to have 152,000 children who are out of school,” he said.
A joint campaign by Unicef and the Ministry of education has seen a total of 25,000 children back to school over the last three years.
“Our target was 41,000 but as you can see we have so far managed 25,000. The Ministry of Education, the administration and other partners, NGOs and the county director of education, have been very instrumental in achieving these numbers,” Mohamed said.
Image: STEPHEN ASTARIKO
They have a component of providing education supplies to make sure that the school environment is conducive for learners.
Part of the solution, Mohamed said, involves setting up low cost boarding schools as well as renovation of ten boarding schools in the county by setting up infrastructure, including water and sanitation facilities.
“Garissa county is predominantly a pastoralist community, so the children come from far-flung areas whose parents move from one place to another in search of water and pasture for their livestock,” he said.
Mohamed said that among the measures put in place include renovation of schools and provision of school uniforms.
The programme has a component of cash transfer and income generating activities for communities for sustainability.
Image: STEPHEN ASTARIKO
Garissa county children coordinator Benjamin Kinyua cited the community’s nomadic way of life and preference for religious education as opposed to secular education as some of the reasons affecting enrolment of children in school.
“We are facing a very big task in regard to education for children because this is a nomadic community. You realise that they keep on moving from one place to another. When they start moving at times they move away from areas where the schools are,” he said.
The government had initiated a programme for mobile schools so that the children could access the education wherever they go. However, the programme faced a lot of challenges.
Pastoralists tend to move to remote areas where there are no schools with only religious education schools commonly referred to as duksis available.
“Some parents prioritise religious education and they don’t understand so much about secular education. Changing the mind of such a parent, who is in the first place, illiterate is a tall order. But what we are doing is trying to sensitise the community so that they understand the importance of ensuring our children go back to school,” Kinyua said.
He said through concerted efforts of different stakeholder, among them the Ministry of Education and Unicef, they have been coming up with programmes to support education, like paying families some money to address some of the challenges experienced by the children within their households.
Iftin Primary School head teacher Siyat Hussein acknowledged the efforts that had been put in place by the ministry, local administration, Unicef, community members and religious leaders.
In his school 552 children were brought back as a result of the intervention of the ministry and Unicef.
“What mainly causes children to drop out of school in our area is poverty that affects parents from sending their children to school. You realise that parents may not be able to get food on the table. And so such a child concentrating in class is a very big problem,” he said.
“Most parents are also illiterate and don’t understand the importance of education.”
He called on the government and partners to prioritise having enough boarding schools.