- Other learners also urged the government to look for ways of addressing challenges such as insecurity and Female Genital Mutilation among others.
- The students said these are some of the issues which slow their studies.
Image: FILE
Students from public primary and secondary schools in the Nairobi region have called on the government to address the depression which is affecting them.
One of the students said depression among learners is negatively affecting their concentration in class which in turn affects their performance.
The student was speaking during the Nairobi Regional Education Dialogue held at the Moi Forces Academy in Nairobi.
“Help us to keep depression at bay especially which emanates from parents because it makes pupils not concentrate in class and due to a lot of negative thoughts,” the student said.
Other learners also urged the government to look for ways of addressing challenges such as insecurity, Female Genital Mutilation, early pregnancies, drug and substance abuse and mental health-related issues.
The students said these are some of the issues which slow their studies.
They said the Ministry of Education should open more schools and improve infrastructure to ease congestion in some of the schools across the country.
Nairobi Regional Director of Education Margaret Lesuda who was also in attendance said the forum was organized to enable learners to develop a communique which would feature in the main dialogue set to be held later in the year.
She said the discussions aim to find ways of enhancing the academic performance of some public schools in Nairobi whose results are declining every year.
“We wanted just to hear the voice of the child. So instead of discussing matters that touch on education on their behalf, we are giving them a chance to tell us. That is why we have this conference,” Lesuda said.
Nairobi Women Representative Esther Passaris lauded the Ministry of Education for providing a platform for learners to air issues affecting them.
She said she will launch a project through the National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF) to address some of the challenges seen in schools.
“I think we have a lot of challenges in our schools. It's sad to hear that a student died by suicide while at school recently because mental health is real,” Passaris said.
“As the NGAAF we are saying that if they can identify counsellors or teachers who want to go for counselling courses we will make it one of the projects that we can fund.”
She said her office is committed to ensuring cases of early pregnancies among school-going children are alleviated.
“We have a problem of teenage pregnancies and I know that there are talks about reducing the number of mixed schools so that we can have focused learning and less interaction of the boy and girl child,” Passaris said.
“If it has worked out in other counties, then it should be considered for adoption so that we don’t end up with pregnancies and lack of concentration in education.”