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Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has urged managements of institutions of learning to create a supportive environment that retains learners in schools throughout an educational cycle.

Machogu said so many strategies have been developed to ensure that all children, regardless of their social status and conditions, get to school and should be supported to complete an entire cycle.

“Access to school without retention and completion of an educational cycle is meaningless.

It undermines the investments the Government is making in education. We must all see that all children entering all the tiers of education complete the tier,” the CS said as when he commissioned the 14,426 Elimu scholars in Nairobi.

School cycle

“And this is why I ordered that close to 4,000 students who failed to sit the 2023 KCSE despite joining Form One in 2020 must be investigated to establish what could have gone wrong with them,” he added.
He also said the country must ensure that all children transiting into secondary school or senior school are able to complete the school cycle in line with 100 per cent transition.

“As we develop more strategies in ensuring that all children, regardless of their social
status, and condition, get into school, I would like to point out that managers of educational institutions must create a supportive learning environment that retains the learners in school,” he said.

Machogu said the community, school administrators and their teachers have a responsibility to make sure that the free and compulsory basic education works and should not saddle parents and guardians with illegal levies that disrupt learning.

He also said all stakeholders must work together to ensure quality learning and teaching in their schools, even as he condemned cases witnessed in some schools recently where parents invaded institutions due to what they perceived was poor performance in national examinations.

“I wish to state that the performance of candidates is the sum total of the efforts of all stakeholders, not just the teachers. We must ensure that the best interests of the child are accorded paramount importance in all matters concerning the child, including the child’s education,” explained Machogu.

Saying the invasion of schools and attacks on teachers are unfortunate, Machogu called for the need to adopt careful, systematic and consultative means of ensuring that innocent children are not deprived of their right to education.

He directed the Ministry of Education’s field officers and Boards of Management to move fast and work with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and the Interior and National Administration counterparts to iron out misunderstandings in some of the schools where parents invaded schools with a view to ensuring resumption of normal learning activities.