Machakos County government has been urged to invest in early child education (ECD) in a bid to create good academic foundation for children from the region.
Addressing parents and teachers at Magathani Primary School during a joint meeting on Friday, Kinanie Magatani Ward Member of County Assembly Cecilia Wavinya said most of the children from the region fail in national examinations due to poor academic foundations.
"We need to give our children proper foundation so that they can excel in their national examinations both at primary and secondary levels," said Wavinya.
Wavinya claimed that early child education had been ignored in the region thus compromising academic standards of many children especially in the ward.
She said her ward was so remote that there were no private academies to offer alternative ECD training to the children adding that the residents were also too poor to afford fees charged in such institutions.
The MCA said parents from the region depend on a few public early child education centres in the ward and the county as a whole which did not properly prepare children to recommended standards.
Wavinya said most of the centres were in pathetic states in terms of infrastructure and teaching staff adding that children sit on the floor due to lack of desks and chairs.
She said the county government ought to had addressed the issue in its firs year of devolution because ECD is a devolved function.
Wavinya claimed most of the teachers handling children in the centres had no proper professional training since they are form four graduates.
She called on the county government to quickly intervene by improving infrastructure in all the ECD centres and sponsoring the currently serving ECD teachers across the county for professional training on ECD education.
Mavoko Sub-County administrator, Moses Muthusi concurred with the MCA on the state of ECD education in the county and Kinanie, Magatani Ward in particular.
Muthusi said the government was well aware of the state and had mapped all the ECD centres in the region with an intent of upgrading them.
He said the county government would equip all the centres with necessary facilities once infrastructure was improved as it equally sponsors young men and women interested on the job to ECD training colleges for professional training during school holidays.