By Wasike Elvis
Kesses Member of Parliament Julius Ruto has called upon the Ministry of Education to initiate and develop a school feeding policy in public schools.
Speaking to the press at his office, he said that the policy would go a long way in increasing school enrollments and retaining existing learners.
“I want to call upon the Ministry to develop a school feeding policy to increase enrollment and attendance of learners especially in local schools which will in turn reduce cases of drop-outs,” he said.
He said that a case study was Racecourse Primary school in Racecourse ward which has a population of 3,000 school going children but at least 200 pupils are forced to stay away from school thus affecting their education.
“Many students have dropped out of school since they are not able to afford even a single meal per day,” Ruto said.
The legislator said that the county government should also chip in and channel more resources towards the programme which will ensure that learners are retained in school in the long run.
He promised to provide necessary resources for learners and ensure proper infrastructure in schools to provide a conducive environment for learning.
“One of my priorities as a patron of NG-CDF funds is to build, renovate and equip existing schools as well as providing buses to schools to ease movement of students in and out of schools,” he added.
He concluded: ”When we invest in education of our children then we’ve invested for their future.”
