More than 8,000 students are set to benefit from a full scholarship from the Kenya Secondary School Education Improvement Projects (SEQIP) to help them pursue secondary school education.
The beneficiaries were students from Forms One to Four in the project that was initiated in 2017 and ended in 2023.
The Ministry of Education project is being given out in 7,852 primary schools and 2,147 secondary schools, targeting 110 sub-counties in 30 counties.
The scholarship targets learners from Arid and Semi-Arid areas where standards of education are relatively low when compared to other counties in Kenya.
According to the SEQIP National Coordinator Jane Mbugua, the project is intended to enable learners in the target areas to access education at primary and secondary levels and join various institutions of higher learning.
Mbugua had attended a capacity-building workshop that was held at ARC Hall, Egerton University and was attended by more than 3,000 sub-county directors of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
She said that the learners were issued learning materials, basic needs and pocket money to facilitate their secondary school education.
“The aim of SEQIP is to give Kenyan learners in arid and semi-arid areas a chance to get an education ad to succeed in their academic pursuits,” she said.
Mbugua said that SEQIP project also has the responsibility of improving the learning of students in Science, Mathematics and English in secondary and primary schools.
In primary schools, the programme targets improvement in Science, Mathematics and English subjects especially in classes seven and eight while in secondary schools it is improvement in Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and English subjects that is targeted.
She revealed that 4,329,057 textbooks had been distributed to 600,000 students from 2,147 secondary schools in the targeted areas.
“We distributed the textbooks for Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics and English for Form One to Form Four in secondary schools to improve performance of those subjects in examinations,” added Mbugua.
Around 600,000 learners in primary schools received 2,254,782 exercise books for English, Science and Mathematics in classes 7 and 8 that were distributed through the Ministry of Education and Kenya Insitute of Curriculum Development.
The textbooks were distributed through the Ministry of Education and the Kenya Insitute of Curriculum Development and were meant to improve the student-book ratio to 1:1 and enhance performance in Science, English and Mathematics to smoothen learners’ transition from primary school to secondary school.
Mbugua revealed that regrettably, before the launch of the SEQIP programme, many learners used to drop out of school and most of them were not able to join secondary schools.
“We aim at improving the transition from primary to secondary schools in 110 sub-counties whose standards of education were so low, high school dropout was witnessed, and there was the low transition from primary to secondary schools.
The targeted areas also used to perform poorly in Sciences, Mathematics and English which are key subjects in our basic education,” she explained.
Mbugua also revealed that 2,145 learners from institutions of special need education received learning devices.
“We have distributed 774 devices to hearing-impaired learners, 1,000 devices to Visually Impaired learners and 371 devices to physically disabled learners,” added Mbugua.
Through the Ministry of Education and Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), the SEQIP Project has distributed 10,771 brail textbooks and printed and distributed 42,547 textbooks in special schools across the country.
Primary schools and secondary schools have also received recruitment of 17,000 and 8,500 teachers respectively to the targeted areas through the programme to address the teacher shortage.
This has been done to improve the quality of teaching and enhance teaching professional development through the TSC and CEMASTEA,” she said.
Besides, 7,891 teachers from 7,852 primary and secondary schools have also undergone training as gender champions to advocate for social support and gender sensitization programmes.
Girls who face challenges such as early pregnancies and early marriages have also been supported to avoid them having to drop out of school as a result.
Sanitary towels have also been availed to 1,478,135 girls in the second and third years of the project’s implementation.
Child labour and drug abuse are also among the challenges that the boy child faces.