Migori County Administration will focus more on constructing Early Childhood Development (ECD) classrooms, instead of modern ECD centers, so as to reach more learning institutions.
Speaking at her office, the County Executive for Education, Gender and Youth, Rahab Robi, stated that funds used to construct a single modern ECD centre could fund three ECD classrooms at different institutions, adding that it was the right decision to take to improve the infrastructure in most schools.
“A modern ECD center comprises of washrooms, an office, a playground, and well-equipped classrooms that require a lot of budgetary allocations for their establishment,” said Robi
The current administration has so far built 212 new ECD classes and other social amenities like toilets at a cost of about Sh160million across the 40 wards.
Although not every school has a new ECD class, the county administration is at the forefront of ensuring that every school has a modern class.
According to Robi, they will continue to focus on Early Childhood Education (ECE) to provide a better space for young children.
The County Executive noted that service delivery at the lowest unit of the society remains the biggest agenda of the current administration to ensure a conducive learning environment for children at the ECD level is safeguarded.
“When we are establishing a classroom for ECD learners, we have been considering the condition of the existing classrooms or lack of it, the population of the students and the distance from one public institution to another to ensure we serve the most vulnerable members of the society, even as we look for more funds to establish other centers in the county,” she said.
Robi also disclosed that all the public ECD learners have trained teachers employed by the county to offer good quality education to the young ones.
However, Robi disclosed that they had a shortage of 200 ECD teachers and due to budget constraints, the county can only employ about 50 teachers in a single financial year.
“We are facing the problem of ECD teacher promotion and recruitment due to limited budgetary allocations, but as a county, we are trying to fix this problem to ensure our tutors are well taken care of,” she said.
The county has also employed Sub-County education officers and the quality assurance officers to ensure education progress and monitoring of the ECD programmes, while addressing any emerging challenges.
In 2025, Migori County, in partnership with the ‘EIDU’ platform, introduced digital learning to 50 per cent of ECD centers that are currently enjoying the new learning experience.
The county has also benefited from other projects implemented by various partners in the education sector, including the Safaricom Foundation, which has been able to set up various classes in the primary sections in the county.
At the same time Lifestraw Foundation has provided water purifiers for clean drinking water for learners, while the Lapfund Foundation has distributed future equipment to ECD centers among other partners.
By Makokha Khaoya
