Africa-Press – Kenya. Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has clarified that the national government has no intention of taking over Early Childhood Development Education Centres (ECDE).
This follows protests from governors over the recommendations by the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms to have a comprehensive schools system established where all levels of learning are headed by one head of the institution.
Last week, the governors said the proposal heavily ‘claws back’ on devolution and breaches the constitution.
They said it also does not provide an accountability framework for the proposed institutions’ heads to the county governments regarding the management of ECDEs.
The governors said the hiring pre-primary teachers is a preserve of county governments and that they will not engage in any process seeking to legislate the recommendations.
Machogu who spoke at Mumbi grounds in Murang’a County during the County Education Day on Sunday said both national and county governments have been complementing each other in education matters.
“The national government has no reason to interfere with the functions of county governments as laid down in the constitution,” he said.
“We follow the constitution as it was promulgated and it clearly stipulates the roles of both levels of the government. We complement each other.”
He said schedule four of the constitution provides that ECDEs are a function of the counties, including their infrastructural development and employment of their teachers.
But he noted that most ECDE centres are premised in primary schools that are managed by the national government and are run by head teachers.
“We know some ECDEs share staffrooms with primary school teachers and some head-teachers also deal with their administrative issues,” he said, adding that this informed the proposal to set up the comprehensive school system.
He, however, noted that, “What MPs will pass is what we will adopt.”
There are about 3,000 pre-primary schools being managed by county governments with more than 54,000 pre-primary teachers and more than 2.3 million learners.
On Friday, the Inter-Governmental Relations Technical Committee (IGRTC) said there was need for further consultations between the two levels of government due to the issues raised by the governors.
“In this regard and in accordance with its mandate, IGTRC has written to the two levels of government inviting them to a consultative meeting on January 16,” the committee said in a press statement.
Machogu further lauded Murang’a Governor Irungu Kang’ata for implementing a feeding programme that sees more than 42,000 ECDE learners take a cup of porridge every day.
He said ECDE learning mostly entails engaging in activities to prepare them for grade one and that having a feeding programme helps the children focus on their learning.
“If that foundation is not laid properly, the child can face challenges in primary school and other levels of learning,” he said.
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