LACK OF SCHOOL FEES FOR LEARNERS

The 2023 foundation on Literacy and numerous assessment report but Usawa Agenda which was launched on Thursday, is the 8th learning assessment report yet the first under the Competency Based Curriculum whose assessment focused mainly on Literacy and numerously.

According to the report, 8.5% of children are out of school an increase from 7.5% which was recorded in 2021. Mandera County tops the list of the counties with the highest number of children out of school at 27.2% followed by Marsabit, Turkana, Samburu, West Pokot, Tana River, Wajir among others, the report also reveals that more boys are dropping out of school compared to girls.

A majority of those who dropped out of school cited lack of school fees as the main reason at 36.7% while others just opted not to go to school, other reason ranged from teenage pregnancies, insecurity and child marriages. The report also exposed skills distribution of teachers in public schools with schools in arid and semi raids lands most affected.

The reports comes at a time when the country is grabbling with the challenging transition of the pioneer cohorts of the CBC learners, a majority of parents decried the high cost of new curriculum, too much content, homework and parental involvement, on learning outcomes 34.8% of grade 6 learners who were expected to have completed the grade 3 level work by the time of assessment could not meet expectations in reading a grade 3 appropriate English text