•Over the last two fiscal years, the county has allocated Sh810 million to the Elimu Kwa Wote initiative; Sh350 million in the 2022-23 and Sh460 million in the 2023-24 financial years.
•When he took office in 2022, Khalif created a task force to hear from the residents and experts and recommend how to implement his project.
People have long associated North Eastern counties like Mandera with poverty, terrorism, drought and dire needs.
Mandera, however, is slowly evolving into an education beacon and the administration is dedicating a major portion of its budget to schoolchildren.
Secondary schooling is free as Governor Mohammed Khalif’s administration pays fees for every student. This ensures they have adequate contact hours with their teachers and are not sent home for fees.
Over the last two fiscal years, the county has allocated Sh810 million to the Elimu Kwa Wote initiative; Sh350 million in the 2022-23 and Sh460 million in the 2023-24 financial years.
When he took office in 2022, Khalif created a task force to hear from the residents and experts and recommend how to implement his project.
The panel’s report is the foundation and framework for implementing early childhood education and support for secondary and tertiary students.
All the ECDE teachers are hired on permanent and pensionable terms and institutions are upgraded to ensure learning proceeds unimpeded.
The administration found 357 ECDE teachers and hired 450 more.
College and university students get 70 per cent fee support. CDF bursaries are left to support Mandera students in schools outside the county.
Those in teachers' training colleges have 50 per cent of their fees paid by the administration to address the teacher shortage that spiralled into a crisis in recent years.
Two principals speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed to the Star that despite “teething challenges”, the programme has progressed relatively smoothly in two years.
"Sometimes we have delays in release because of exchequer problems, but the governor has initiated partnerships with financial institutions to give us money to run schools," one head teacher said.
"It is a huge departure from the years past when school dropouts and lost learning time were a major issue here. The student-teacher contact hours are high. Devolution is working here."
Governor Khalif said all the learning levels in the county have a feeding programme to ensure students from poor backgrounds remain in school.
He decided to roll out a comprehensive education project when he witnessed how drought devastated families as he traversed the county during the 2022 campaigns.
“As I went around campaigning, I saw first-hand how the huge drought not seen in decades had affected lives, forcing school principals to send away children 60 per cent of the learning time, making them miss out as their parents were not able to pay up,” he said.
“Due to that drought, livestock died. As a pastoralist community, we depend on our livestock to educate our children and make a livelihood.”
He had promised that if elected, his flagship initiative would be creating a sustainable pathway for educating Mandera youth.
“Once elected, my first order of business was to call all school principals for a meeting in December to map out a way of implementing the initiative. The teachers told me they barely ran the schools effectively.”
We agreed that with capitation from the national government if we give them 60 per cent of the monies they collect from parents, they will keep them in class,” he said.
“We made a policy that we pay for everyone because education is the way for the future,” he said.
The governor said the programme has boosted economic activity as money is left in the hands of the people. Most of the families have also given up pastoralism.
“Thank God we have also had sustained rainy seasons in the recent past and this has made our people leave pastoralism.”
And because parents no longer have to sell their livestock at a throwaway price in desperation, the price of a he-goat has skyrocketed to Sh15,000 as opposed to Sh3,000 a few years ago.
The governor said educating Mandera youth is also a way to rid the area of easy, unschooled targets for radical extremism by al Shabaab.
“Because our youths are all going to school, they are busy bettering their lives. And those going to colleges and universities are also supported. That is why here in Mandera, there is no petty crime, and even on the security front, we are closely collaborating to ensure no loophole is left for nefarious minds.”
Area’s deputy county commissioner Patrick Meso corroborated the governor’s claims on crime, saying the area has not had major cases, such as robberies. Defilement remains a problem though.
Education CEC Bashir Ibrahim Alio said the programme has seen improvement in academic performance even in the remotest parts of the county, with some girls scoring A.
"Performance has improved greatly because of no lost contact hours. Grades A and A minus were 25 last year which is a big deal."