Mwea Member of Parliament (MP) Mary Maingi has attributed poor performance by schools in her constituency to child labour, substance abuse and lack of enough teachers.
The MP noted that Mwea East Sub-county had a mean score of 3.97 while Mwea West Sub-county managed a mean score of 3.297 in last year’s KCSE exams.
“Those are not acceptable scores and we must come up with ways of improving the levels of education in Mwea,” the Legislator told the Press.
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The MP said high poverty levels push children in the area to work in rice fields in order to access basic needs.
“A child is forced to work in the fields during either harvesting or planting to be able to access basic needs like food and stationery, instead of attending school,” she said.
She, therefore, urged parents in the region to provide for their children in order to curb child labour.
At the same time, Mwea West Deputy County Commissioner Teresia Wanjiku gave a stern warning to parents who let their children work in the rice fields for money instead of going to school.
“The is a law that protects the rights of children and we will enforce it to the letter to ensure that there is no child labor and that children will be attending school at the right time,” Wanjiku said.
She added that chiefs and assistant chiefs will be patrolling in the field to ensure that there are no children working especially during school time.
"We are planning to be visiting rice farms to check where there are children working now that the schools are open," she said.
The two spoke at a meeting hosted by Mwea MP in Wang’uru town where stakeholders in the education sector had met to deliberate on ways to improve the levels of education in the largest constituency in Kirinyaga county.
During the meeting, the issue of drug abuse also came up as a challenge affecting education.
“Drugs are being consumed by kids in Primary schools, I am in shock. I thought at first it was a problem for secondary schools,” area MP Mary Maingi expressed concern about the vice.
The MP further said that there are not enough teachers in the majority of the schools in Mwea.
“I have been in contact with the TSC and they have increased the number of teachers in our schools but we still have a deficit of teachers,” she said.
Maingi also lamented the poor state of schools saying that she will use available resources at her disposal to improve on their state.
"We do not have enough teaching and learning materials and the environment in our schools is not encouraging and we are planning on constructing classes using NG-CDF funds."
