Kacheliba Member of Parliament Mark Lomunokol has called on the County and national governments to create mobile schools in remote pastoral areas along the County borders to wipe out illiteracy and help boost education in the area.
Thousands of children in the area spanning West Pokot who have attained the school age are forced to stay at home in Manyattas because of lack of schools along the West Pokot-Turkana-Uganda border.
Learners in the area face the challenges of insecurity, early forced marriages, female genital mutilation and other retrogressive practices that hinder education. “This will be an avenue for children to attend evening classes after helping parents during day time. Already many people who missed out in education have embraced adult education,” he said, “We want to catch up with other areas in terms of development.”
Speaking in his constituency while inspecting development projects, the legislator challenged the Ministry of Education and the County government to look at proper ways of ensuring that pastoralist communities who are nomadic are not left out of the basic education. “We have hundreds of children within who are supposed to attend ECD learning but due to lack of teachers they are forced to stay without education. There is a stereotype that pastoral communities don’t like education but the way of life forces them to live like that,” said Lomunokol. He added that the area requires ECD centers urgently.