By Ben Leshau
The Narok branch of Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Executive Secretary Paul Lepore has asked school heads to be in the forefront in fighting rampant girl-child dropouts in a bid to boost literacy levels in the pastoral county.
Lepore attributed the high rate of dropouts to failure by teachers to immediately report and track girls dropping out of school.
“Teachers are the first people to notice that a certain school girl is not in class and she or he is supposed to inquire on her whereabouts but its seems there has been a collusion between some of them and parents,” decried Lepore.
The KNUT official added: “Teachers should be the watchdog of our girls. Once a girl fails to report back to school after holidays they should immediately report the matter to authorities for action and possibly return the girl back to class. Gone are the days when girls were disregarded”.
He said approximately 40 per cent of school girls aged between 10 to 15 fail to join secondary school as majority of them undergo the outlawed Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) before being married off at a tender age.
Lepore has also lamented over shortage of Teachers Service Commission (TSC)-employed teachers in the county thus increasing the child-teacher ratio.
“We have a shortage of about 2,000 teachers across the county. We have been pushing for more employment by TSC but nothing has been happening”, he said.
He said the deficit of teachers and lack of motivation through crucial allowances such as hardship was to blame for the poor 2017 national examinations results in the county.
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