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{
    "id": 1562803,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1562803/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 242,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Julius Migos Ogamba",
    "speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Education",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "(a) The school Meals Programme: This is a key Government initiative designed to enhance access to and the retention of students in basic education, particularly among children in marginalised, arid and semi-arid and food insecure areas. Some areas within Makueni County benefit from this programme. The Ministry has adopted a progressive retargeting strategy to facilitate the expansion of the initiative to other undeserved areas. We are now working to integrate clean cooking solutions into the school-based interventions as part of the broader efforts to promote environmentally sustainable and climate-friendly practises within learning institutions. (b) The Low-Cost Boarding Schools and Mobile Schools Programme: The low- cost boarding schools are a strategic intervention that targets a particular catchment of learners in environments that may inhibit school attendance, retention, completion, and transition. The intervention assists the hard-to-reach and marginalised learners in arid and semi-arid and vulnerable areas in the country. These are learners who, due to various circumstances, including retrogressive cultural practises like female genital mutilation, forced early marriages and nomadic lifestyle, are unable to attend to classes regularly and consistently. In order to ensure attendance and retention in school in view of these challenges, the Government supports their stay in low-cost boarding schools. It pays subsidies to support the non-teaching staff in the boarding wing and learners' upkeep in the schools. The schools are not expected to charge learners boarding fees. The Government grants support learners' upkeep and subsidises salaries of workers attached to boarding sections in the schools. The programme started in 2016, and for the last five years, it has been receiving an annual allocation of Kshs400 million despite the growth in enrolment. Currently, there are 486 public low-cost primary schools serving a total population of 144,845 learners. Learners who have been enroled in school are saved from retrogressive practises like child labour, cattle rustling, and early marriages. This ultimately translates into improved transition and retention rates across the levels of basic education. The schools also serve as rescue centres for some of the learners, who are kept in school and protected from the surrounding risks such as insecurity and retrogressive cultural practises. The primary challenge is the limited funding. As indicated above, the budgetary allocation has remained only Kshs400 million over the last five years, even as enrolment continues to grow. In the same vein, there is demand for expansion of the programme to other regions such as urban informal settlements, where children are vulnerable to child labour, early marriages, and insecurity. This will require an increase in the budgetary allocation. (c) Out-of-School Children Advocacy Campaigns Programme: The “Operation Come to School” is a programme that targets out-of-school children, including orphans, children with disabilities, married girls, street-involved children, and those in (Arid and Seni-Arid Lands (ASAL) and underserved areas. Key barriers to their education include, inadequate teaching staff and facilities, limited support for learners with disabilities, poor sanitation, unrecognised alternative The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}