‘We are losing the boychild’, Lugari MP Nabii Nabwera warns
Lugari lawmaker Nabii Nabwera has raised concerns over the alarming drop out cases of boys from schools in the North Rift and Western region.
The MP lamented that most of the boys were dropping out of school at an alarming rate and called for concerted efforts to reverse the trend.
“We need to find out why we are losing the boy child. We are facing a danger in Lugari, in recent KCSE results, girls were more than boys by 700 and if you check the KCPE admissions, girls in some schools are more than half. For instance, in Luandeti primary school, we have 500 girls while boys are 234,” he observed.
He made the remarks at an event where Gladys Nyongesa, a renowned politician in the area, unveiled her book titled ‘the most beautiful thing.’
“The danger is that when I walk around in the constituency I meet boys but not in school. When I met my colleagues, this was replicated elsewhere. If we don’t reverse this, we will end up losing our boys and must relook at this,” stated the first term MP.
He challenged the academic scholars to examine factors that were contributing to the low enrolment rates among boys in the country.
In the last year’s KCPE results, there was a gender parity of boys at 51.30 per cent in favour of boys while girls stood at 48.70 per cent.
MPs Prof Phyllis Bartoo (Moiben), Dick Maungu (Luanda) are members of the committee on education.
The duo together with MPs Beatrice Elachi (Dagoretti North) and Innocent Mugabe (Likuyani) also graced the event.
Elachi explained that a mentorship program to support young girls’ access education and life skills is in place.
At the same time, Prof Bartoo called on the reenactment of the laws to protect young girls amid rising femicides in the country.
“We need to relook at our laws to protect the lives of many innocent underage girls and boys. We should also spearhead mentorship programs so that young girls can make better decisions whenever they find themselves in such situations,” stated the first term lawmaker.
In the past two weeks, a wave of femicides has been reported resulting in deaths of young girls in unclear situations.
Mrs Nyogesa who served as youngest senator said that she was inspired to pen down the 78 paged book to enable her to mentor young girls in the country and beyond.
“I realized that young girls aged between 12 and 30 years are through challenges and lack proper mentorship. We need to provide mentorship programmes to girls to enable them make wise and informed decisions,” said the former senator.
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