A Kisumu county executive wants a new law to compel parents to enroll all children of school-going age for Early Childhood Development (ECD) classes. County executive in charge of Education, Sports, Culture and the Arts Jennipher Kere lamented that only 30 percent of children of the Early Childhood Development (ECD) stage in the county are in school. “We must make sure that all children of school-going age are in school and not anywhere else. We must account for 100 percent of the children who should be in school,” she said. Kere explained that her office was going to draft laws to ensure that all parents with school-going children are compelled to take them to school. “It is illegal for any school-going children not to be in school and as a county we are drafting laws to ensure that no parent keeps such a child at home,” she said. The constitution mandates the devolved units to oversee education only at the ECD level. She pointed out that disability cases among children are one of the factors that has attributed to such poor attendance of school for children in the pre-primary category. The executive says the percentage was alarming and needed urgent action from those concerned. “We need to ensure that all those kids who should be in school are there,” she said.

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