[A photo showing pupils in a class. A survey done by Twaweza East Africa showing that literacy levels in Kisii County are worrying with high level children unable to attend to a lower level task. Photo/The star.co.ke]
Despite being ranked highly in a nationwide survey three years ago, a recent survey indicates that literacy levels in Kisii County are incredibly worrying.
In 2014, Kisii County was ranked first in terms of literacy levels (85 percent] in a survey done by the Ministry of Education hence setting bench marking precedence in the region for other lowly ranked areas.
But a survey done by Twaweza Kenya shows that the county is lagging behind in recent years with lots of pupils in class three unable to handle tasks allocated to lower levels.
According to the survey, only 47.9 percent of class three children can handle a class two task, a figure that places the South Nyanzan County in position 20 out of the 47 counties across the country.
And the figure is greatly boosted by Masaba district which recorded a 61.4 percent of Class three children who could successfully handle class two works.
However, in Gucha South district, only 34 percent of class three children who could successfully handle class two work a figure that could send education stakeholders from the region to drawing board.
The survey used 100 pupils from across the districts as sample population in the test that showed that only 16 pupils out of the possible 100 from Gucha South who could handle class two work. The figure was impressive in Masaba District where 62 pupils in class three were able to handle class two tasks.
Worryingly, pupils’ absenteeism is quite higher than teachers with 26 out of 100 pupils missing from class while a similar survey shows that only 23 out of 100 teachers were absent during a normal school day.
The survey also indicates that 49.9 percent of girls are able to read a Swahili or English story belonging to a lower level compared to 42.4 percent of boys, a figure that puts a boy child at risk in terms of literacy levels.