By Amoto Dennis
Wajir south MP Dr Mohamud Oomar has blamed parents for not seeking accountability and putting up adequate infrastructure in schools.
‘’The education status of the region and Wajir county as whole isn’t amusing,’’ Oomar recently told an Education Conference of education stakeholders in Wajir town.
Dr Oomar who has been a lecture at five universities abroad, challenged parents to hold teachers accountable and continuously asses their children performance and attendance in school.
He lamented that his constituency did not get neither A, A- nor B+ in last year’s examination.
He reiterated that although he understood that the exodus of the non-local tutors led to the dismal performance in last year’s national examination, he believed the region could perform better.
‘’We can achieve better results when we come together and walk together as parents, teachers and pupils,’’ he said.
He said it wasn’t plausible to leave everything to teachers alone.
The same sentiments were echoed by former KNEC national coordinator and now county secretary of Strategic Initiatives’; and Muktar Ogle, who said parents’ contribution was conspicuously missing.
Parents, Ogle said has to be there for children to perform.
He added that last year’s KSCE showed that 62 per cent of candidates who sat for the examination never attained university entry point of C+.
“That is why we want to introduce an apprentice program for the student who didn’t make to meet the examiners university entry point.
The two day education stakeholder’s conference ended with a challenge to discourage ‘our son’ mentality when engaging teachers on performance and placement.
He said it was unacceptable for the residents to always protect their sons even if they didn’t meet the thresh hold of performance.
Meanwhile, as the Wajir South MP heaped blame on parents for not playing their part in education development, near destitute parents in Dadaab constituency are blaming their MP Dr Mohamed Dahiye for not paying attention to the plight of Dertu Girls students who have continued to stay out of school due lack of school fees .
‘’The springs have severely trampled on the dreams nearly half of the needy students chased away from school due unpaid school fees’’ Mohamed Kuno told Education News.
Kuno said since the school was in Dadaab constituency it was worthy of the local MP to talk about the issue.
‘’I’m puzzled why the local MP has gone mute, yet there is over Sh100 million annually to support development through CDF, ’’ said Kuno.
He said it was lamentable that the Auditor General’s report indicated Dadaab CDF had been misused yet the plight of needy girls remains unaddressed in this era of free secondary education.
He said that unless accountability, sanity and sanctity are restored in elective public offices, the fate of Dadaab children born in poverty remain in the dark.
He appealed to the county government of Garissa and the Dadaab MP to look into the teething issues of the girl child.
