Matete Sub County director of education Mr. Tom Oluoch has raised concern over high number of school age going children who are not attending school in the area. Speaking at Maturu when he officially opened the Maturu special school, Mr. Oluoch said it was regrettable that parents in the area have not taken the education of their children seriously.
He said it was unfortunate that despite efforts being made by the government through the introduction of free primary and secondary education parents have failed to embrace the program. “The biggest challenge that we are still having as the ministry of education here in Matete is that quite a number of our children who are both special need cases and those who are normal are not going to school, they are idling and roaming up and down in the village roads yet we talk of free primary and secondary education,” said Oluoch, adding that this was a clear indication that parents have not realized importance of educating their children.
He called on parents to put a lot of emphasis on education by taking up their responsibilities and ensure all children both normal and those with special need get access to education so that they can fit in the modern changing world. “I want to remind our parents that the century we are in now is totally different from the life we used to live in the past. The only thing that can bring change in your, life, in your village, in your
home is nothing else but education and it has no shortcuts its either you take your child to school or not,” said Oluoch.
“It is not the responsibility of the school to come and look for that child from your home, but it is your responsibility as a parent to ensure that your child goes to school,” he added.
However, Oluoch disclosed that he had shared the issue with area Deputy County Commissioner George Omollo, primary and secondary school heads and other education stakeholders and they were working on a raft of measures to deal with the situation.
At the same time, Oluoch thanked the ministry of education for giving Kshs. 2.3M for construction of classrooms at the special school and lauded the school head Mr. Isaac Wabuge for prudent use of the fund which was used to put up three classrooms and toilets for the special need pupils.
He, however, appealed to teachers at the new school to work hard towards transforming lives of the special needs pupils at the facility and make them useful members of society. “It’s not only the buildings that are important what is more important is what will come out of setting up these buildings. If we can’t translate the value of having the buildings into quality education for our special needs children, then it is useless,” he said, adding that the government is putting a lot of emphasis on special needs education as an area that should be promoted.
