Early marriages and pregnancies are becoming notable major hindrances to education in Kenya.
As form ones continue to report in schools this week, details have emerged that hundreds of students in Kajiado County may not report due to early pregnancies.
The pregnancy cases have been attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic that interrupted the school calendar with education officials and children rights activists in the county reporting a rise in school drop-out cases, early pregnancies and marriages.
A proprietor of Patinaai Osim, a non-governmental organisation targeting to keep children in school informed nation.africa that some parents are using the opportunity of early marriages to marry them off their girls.
“We’re worried that a number of our teenage girls will not transition to secondary schools because they’re either pregnant or had children. Here, it takes the goodwill of the parents for a child to go back to school after giving birth,” said the proprietor, Ms Semerian Sankori.
For instance, in In Mashuru Sub-County alone, the school dropout rate grew to more than 100 pupils since the pandemic struck the nation. In some schools, more than ten pupils mostly girls have never returned after the Covid-19 break.
According to Mashuru Sub-County Quality Education Director Isaiah Kishoyian, the numbers are just a fraction of the true picture on the ground. Some headteachers and chiefs have also been said to collaborate with parents to cover sexual abuse, early marriages and school drop-outs cases.
“As a matter of emergency, we have resorted to go to the ground and do the tally ourselves while mobilizing parents to release their children to school,” said Mr Kishoyian.
Stakeholders in Kisii county have also raised alarm over the increased number of defilement and incest cases leading to early teenage pregnancies in the county.
This comes as Kenyatta’s government is pushing the100 per cent transition policy of pupils from primary to secondary schools, notably for young mothers.
“We are doing our level best to ensure every single child who is supposed to be in school is back. This is something that we’re doing with both our national administration as well as the Ministry of Education. If there were cases of early pregnancies, those girls must be allowed to go back to school and ordered to complete their education,” said the President during his visit to the United Kingdom.
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK
​​​​​For more Teachers Update
Join the @TeachersUpdates Telegram channel
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
