According to a report published on Nation.Africa, one of the main stumbling blocks that girls encounter is early marriages and pregnancies.
Form One students across the country are reporting to schools this week and probably till the coming week. It has been revealed that while this is going on, hundreds of students in Kajiado County might fail to report to school due to the above-mentioned issues.
Cases of pregnancy may have been increased due to the prolonged closure of schools across the country. The Government was forced to close all institutions of learning in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus. This meant young girls stayed idle at home for a long time and this may have contributed to the increase of pregnancy cases.
Patnaai Osim, a non-governmental organization is targeting to keep children in schools revealed to Nation.Africa that some parents are opting to marry off their young girls.
“We are worried that some teenage girls will not transition to secondary schools because they are neither pregnant or have given birth to children. After giving birth, it depends on the goodwill of the parents for the girl to go back to school,” said Ms. Semerian Sankori who is the proprietor of Patnaai Osim.
In Mashuru Sub-County alone, the number of pregnant girls has risen to more than 100 pupils since the first case of the COVID-19 pandemic was announced in Kenya.
According to Mashuru Sub-County Director for Quality Education Isaiah Kishoyian, the numbers are just a small representation of the serious reality with a lot more girls having given birth or gotten pregnant.
Some chiefs and headteachers have been reported to be covering sexual abuse together with parents, drop-out cases, and early marriages.
“As a matter of emergency, we have resorted to go to the ground and do the tally ourselves while mobilizing parents to release their children to school,” said Mr. Kishoyian.
Elsewhere in Kisii County, members of the community have warned that there has been an increase in the number of incest and defilement cases that have led to early teenage pregnancies in the county.
Currently, the Government is pushing the 100 percent transition policy for pupils from primary to secondary schools. In this push young mothers have been prioritized.
“We are doing our level best to ensure every single child who is supposed to be in school is back. This is something we are doing with both our national administration as well as the Ministry of Education. If there were cases of early pregnancies, those girls must be allowed to go back to school and ordered to complete their education,” President Kenyatta as he visited the United Kingdom.