By P, KNA
County governments in the country do not take Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) seriously, Nominated Senator Betty Montet has said.
Montet who is also the Chairperson for Senate Education Committee especially said that many children lacked infrastructure saying the children were learning in an unconducive environment.
Also, she said that among other things that ECDE Centres should have included a water tank, two classrooms for PP1 and Pp2 besides a feeding programme for the minors.
“If we fail to give young children a good foundation, then we will start going wrong. The policy is that we should have ECDE Centres which are made up of two classrooms for PP1, PP2 and an office, a water tank and a school feeding programme where children are fed 4 times a week,” said Montet at Makueni Governors Office while addressing the media on Friday.
The committee had a courtesy call on Governor Mutula Kilonzo Jr. and they had come to assess the progress of ECDE education infrastructure and establish how service delivery was done to the learners.
She praised Makueni county for building 384 well-equipped ECDE classrooms since 2014 and operationalizing 61 Vocational Training Centres (VTCs).
“These efforts have positively impacted over 39,000 learners who are enjoying improved learning environment compared to the previously dilapidated facilities,” said Makueni senator Daniel Maanzo.
On his part, Governor Mutula welcomed the Committee’s audit and observed that the national government to provide conditional grants to boost county government education systems, citing limited resources and competing priorities.
He further said that the county government has employed 957 ECDE teachers on permanent and pensionable while adding that parents have employed 1,120 teachers whom they are paying in order for them to offer services to the learners.
“Parliament should find a conditional grant to make sure every school has an ECDE Centre. Suggestion is that the function involving ECDE get funding by the national government through a conditional grant,’ said Mutula.
Concerning VTCs, the governor said the government should make them Centres of our youth where they gain skilled labour so that they would be made busy and come out of the streets.
“The Senate can find a formula where the VTCs become the Centre for our youth to get skills so they get out of the streets. This will enable the country to export skilled labour to other countries,” said the governor.
Those present included Senate Committee Vice Chair Prof. Margaret Kamar, Senators Nderitu Kinyua (Laikipia), James Murango (Kirinyaga), and Johnes Mwaruma (Taita Taveta), Deputy Governor Lucy Mulili, County Executive Committee Member (CECM) Japheth Mang’oka and his counterpart for Finance Damaris Kavoi.