By MN Reporter
Poor infrastructure and water has been cited as the major cause for poor performance in Kuria East Sub County schools.
The Sub County stakeholders Education during their forum at Kegonga trading centre blamed deteriorating infrastructure for the dismal performance in the entire Kuria schools.
The stakeholders included school principals from both primary and secondary, area political leaders and parents.
Leaders churned out way forward on how to address the poor performance which had only 27 students in the whole Kuria East Constituency with direct entry to the university during 2017 KCSE examinations.
Speaking during the forum, Kuria East Member of Parliament Marwa Kitayama tasked the forum members to solutions of reducing the number of Es and Ds which was bigger percentage during the last KCSE exams.
He said there was need for local leaders, school head teachers and parents to find lasting solution poor performance in KCPE and KCSE examinations.
“I want you all as school heads and parents to help me find the way forward and solution on how we can improve on our poor performance in most of our secondary schools,” he said.
The legislator said that poor infrastructure including inadequate water supply, poor roads network and shortage of learning materials has greatly affected school performance competence for many years.
The director of education for curriculum development Chacha Charles Mwita while also addressing the event also agreed that Kuria schools infrastructure is in deplorable state.
He said that most students including girls spend most of their time fetching water from rivers and streams around their respective secondary schools something that infringes on time and affecting their ability to concentrate in class.
Christine Gekaro an assistant Board of Management chairperson at Wangirabose Secondary school in Kuria East said that lack of water is also putting the security of the young girls at risk as they have to mingle with the society members some of who do not value the girls’ education in Kuria community.
“The water problems and infrastructure crisis has greatly affected the performance of the girls schools and tangible issues have to effected to iron out the water crisis that has over the years affected our schools,”she said.
She added that the biting water crisis in most girls’ schools in Kuria has caused many of the students to drop out of schools as some of them are lured into early marriages after undergoing the female genital mutilation.
The stakeholders that also included the county executive committee members for education Samson Maringa Ngariba and his water and Energy counterpart Rebecca Maroa said that the county will work closely with all the stakeholders in the education in Kuria to help find a lasting solution on shortage of infrastructure and water in most of the schools to help improve performance.
The forum was also attended by both the Kenya National Union of Teachers KNUT Kuria branch chairman Mangitemi Joseph and his KUPPET chairman Marwa Francis who all welcomed the move by the stakeholders and lauded the new curriculum but caution on implementation a situation which derailed aims of the 8.4.4 system.
