Thursday 2 March 2017

WAMBORA'S ECDE: EDUCATING THE CHILDREN, ENLIGHTENING THE YOUTH, CEREBRATING WITH TEACHERS AND PLEASING PARENTS.

Governor Wambora addresses the public during a past event.

Good tidings reaching us from Nakuru, Kenya, is that Embu Governor Martin Wambora, on 1st March, 2017, gave close to 300 Million Kenya Shillings in support of education in the County, in form of bursaries for bright but needy learners.

Governor Wambora addresses High School Principals in Nakuru.



While addressing Embu County High School Principals in Nakuru, the much politically embattled leader assured them of his continued support to the Education Sector. He has diligently supported education right from tertiary level, down to nursery school (ECDE).

The excerpt below, from a past publication, will tell you how much the County Government, under governor Wambora's leadership has invested in our children through the Early Childhood Development and Education (ECDE) program. 

'Parents with children who are to attend pre-primary school for early childhood education in Embu County now have every reason to smile.
This follows the launch of campaigns to improve facilities by the County government, partly linked to improved enrollment presently being recorded across public nursery schools.
A report released by the Embu County government quotes the incumbent governor, Martin Nyagah Wambora expressing his government’s determination to improve standards of early childhood education through elevated facilities as well as hiring of qualified and efficient personnel. This comes as a welcome relief since it is the desire of every parent to ensure that their child gets quality education to set them off to a bright future.
In August 2013,Embu Government promoted all its early childhood development centre education teachers to permanent and pensionable status, in a bid to motivate them.

The report indicates that at least KSh 51 million has been allocated for the improvement of infrastructure such as building and refurbishing of classrooms as well as securing teaching aids.
About KSh 45 million will be spent in construction of 30 new classrooms in various early childhood centres with the first 10 classrooms consuming KSh 7 million while the next 20 such units will cost KSh 30 million.
Further, some KSh 8 million is being invested in refurbishment of various facilities in about 20 centres where years of negligence has seen units nearly collapse.
According to the report, KSh6 million will be spent to buy various teaching aids and learning materials for the teachers and children.
The bid to improve early childhood education centres comes in the background of the national government handing over management of nursery schools to county governments.
Embu County government has used professionals and backed what it will be doing with research.
The report further indicates that a survey of all the early childhood units  was undertaken by the Education Department of the Embu County Government in 2013 to establish their status and identify the needs of the institutions. It was then noted that infrastructure and staff remained a major setback.
In the wake of the findings of the baseline survey and recommendations by experts, immediate campaigns to recruit qualified teachers were successfully launched and completed during which 486 teachers started teaching towards the end of 2013.
To ensure stability in the management of the staff, the county government signed a three years package with the teachers with monthly salaries starting at KSh12,000.
“The employment of teachers has had a positive impact on the education sector because that has seen enrollment increase by 15 per cent from 14,391 to 16,621 children towards the end of last year,” says Wambora.
He explains: “The county government successfully funded the purchase of ECDE curriculum support materials with a total of 8,100 being issued to all centres during which time each unit received at least 22 copies of the materials.”
According to Wambora, a strict system of monitoring the performance of the recruited teachers has been formulated as means of ensuring that there is firm and continuous adherence to the guidelines in the provision of quality of education to the young children.
“Young learners will always need to be treated with care and professionalism as the foundation to the future of education and development in the county,” observes governor Wambora.
He notes that teaching teams will in future be frequently involved in refresher courses to ensure they learn new tricks of impacting knowledge on children whose brains are delicate and need great care when being taught.
Immediately the new teachers were hired, the County Government took them to a residential Capacity Building Workshop at the Kigari Teachers’ College where experts shared ideas on how to harmonize teaching in all the nursery schools.
The Embu County Government has borrowed positive attributes from the Ministry of Education and stakeholders from the private sector to make the wholesome education of children in nursery schools in the County a success. They are doing this by incorporating extra-curricular activities such as music festivals and sports which the County Government sponsors.
According to Governor Wambora, last year, the Embu County government sponsored all nursery schools which participated in music festivals to make presentations right to the national level with major successes being recorded.' 


Governor Wambora and first lady Theresiah Wambora,
(Centre, in blue suit) in a group photo with the Head Teachers. 

Governor Martin Wambora, branded 'Ciiko' (Actions) for his performance record in terms of development projects implemented in Embu County under his leadership, issued a total of Ksh. 275.9 Million as bursaries to needy but bright students learning in the represented schools.


The event was held under the banner of Kenya Secondary Schools Association.