By Obadiah Oroko
Parents from Nyang’iti Location of Bassi Chache Ward in Bobasi Sub-county whose adolescent daughters have dropped out of school due to early pregnancies have been challenged to give their daughters a second chance to go back to school.
Itibo Division Assistant County Commissioner Christine Oketch has declared war against any parent from the region found to frustrate the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology’s ‘return to school’ policy whose objective is to encourage adolescent and teenage mothers to go back to class after delivery.
Addressing a public Baraza at Isamwera Youth Polytechnic in Nyang’iti Location in the area, Oketch warned local communities against clinging to conservative cultural beliefs that girls who have given birth have graduated into adults and parents who have no opportunity of going back to class.
The administrator regretted that early childbearing reflects various forms of social and economic marginalisation of a girl-child, especially those from conservative cultural background.
Oketch who was accompanied by area Senior Chief, John Rasugu and other local administrators, challenged education stakeholders, chiefs and their assistants from the area to intensify public awareness campaigns on the importance of having adolescent and teenage mothers go back to school and take advantage of the Government’s free education programme.
