TARIME District Commissioner (DC) Msafiri Mtemi has said stern measures will be taken against parents who fail to send their children, especially girls to school, but resort to marry them off.
Authorities have expressed their concern that as secondary schools open some children who passed their Standard Seven national exams and were selected to join secondary education have failed to report to their respective schools.
He said the government in the district had started investigating following allegations that some parents were colluding with other men to marry them off their children, which fuelled early marriage.
‘’From now onwards any parent or guardian who will be found to have denied a girl the right to education will be held accountable.’’
The DC issued the warning at the weekend while inspecting the ongoing construction of classrooms to enable hundreds of candidates selected to join primary education, but failed to do so due to a shortage of classrooms.
He expressed concern over a big numbers of pupils, mostly girls, who drop out of school due to pregnancy, early marriage, child labour and truancy.
He said the number of primary school dropouts rose dramatically as some students had left their secondary school in 2019. He added that the government would find a solution to this problem as soon as possible.
He called for the arrest of men who had impregnated schoolgirls and urged parents and community leaders to ensure schoolgirls completed their studies and refrained from female genital mutilation (FGM) performed especially every year.
