The first ever school for teenage mothers in Kenya will be unveiled in Ganze constituency Kilifi county beginning August 2 this year.
Ganze Member of parliament Teddy Mwambire said plans are at an advanced stage to ensure the operations of the school which is first of its kind in the country begins.
Speaking after officially laying the foundation of three classroom project at Madamani he said teenage mothers will be allowed to breastfeed their children while schooling.
“We have high hopes that by August 2 this year we shall open the secondary school for teenage mothers who gave birth while still in school,” he said.
Mwambire said the secondary school will be situated at Kafuloni area in Sokoke ward adding that they required some funds to build three other classrooms at the primary school so as to relocate those who had joined secondary school at the area.
He said they have decided to start the school and then the other issues shall be addressed when operations are going on.
Currently he said they were in the process of recruiting the teenage mothers who will be students at the school.
“Some have already been found and are preparing to join the school so as to be ready to start classes, the other classes will be built as the learning progresses,’’ he said.
Ganze constituency and Kilifi county have had challenges of high cases of teenage pregnancies which has led to increased drop out of young girls.
In 2019 Kilifi was in the limelight after recording over 17,000 cases of teenage pregnancy and the situation was alarming prompting the legislator whose area had also been highly affected to think of an idea of helping the teenage mothers access education even after giving birth.
“It will be the first government secondary school in Kenya which will be for teenage mothers who got pregnant at school and will be staying with their children, they will be given a chance during break time to breastfeed them, his constituency has a problem of classrooms and requires over sh. 2 billion to ensure all the children have proper learning environment.
Most of the school the MP said are in a dilapidated state and require to be rehabilitated and new ones built.
He said they have embarked on a program to rehabilitate classrooms which are in dilapidated state in the constituency using the National government constituency development funds.
Mwambire said his vision is also to complete all stalled projects so as to ensure at the end of his term there are no projects that are abandoned.
He urged fellow legislators to also follow suit and complete projects left behind by the previous regimes so as to benefit the people.
Billy Baya a resident of Ganze said the constituency is facing a major challenge of classrooms as there are many pupils with less classes.
He appealed to the government to support in the development of classrooms in Ganze so as to ensure children have a conducive environment for learning.
“Government should increase the allocation of NG-CDF funds so that parents can be supported with the development of classes,” he said.
Celestine Charo a resident also called on the government to provide more funding for development of classrooms and desks.
Some of the children she said are forced to drop out because of the poor state of classrooms some of which are leaking and in bad state.