Relief for Nyeri ECDE Caregivers as County Government Absorbs Them

Children under the Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) in Nyeri are the luckiest after the governor, Mutahi Kahiga committed his office to shoulder the burden of paying a total of 604 caregivers.

The county government absorbed the caregivers into the County Public Service Board with better terms of engagement. This comes as a relief to many parents who have been bearing the cost.

Apart from employing the caregivers, Governor Mutahi said that the county has committed additional funds towards putting up more ECDE classes, facilitating the improvement of the already existing 426 centres and to provide teaching and learning materials.

“We are focused on consistently strengthening the ECDE, as it plays a pivotal role in providing a firm education foundation to the children. I am persuaded that children who receive solid foundational education during their formative years perform better than those who do not,” said Kahiga who is also an educationist.

During the signing of the contracts of the hired ECDE caregivers, the governor said that the county government is looking to increase the number of hired caregivers to 800. This, he said, was to ensure that the student to teacher’s ratio is balanced.

The hired caregivers are on a one-year renewable contract subject, which is subject to one’s performance.

The county government also issued bursaries worth 40 million shillings under a program dubbed Elimu Fund to 11,338 students from several education levels including universities, middle-level colleges, secondary and special schools.

The county government, according to Kahiga, is planning to increase the bursary allocation to 100 million shillings in the next financial year to accommodate more needy cases that will also cover those undertaking vocational training.

Nevertheless, he promised that they will do their best to leverage on technology to make the processing of the bursary awards more efficient and transparent.

Meanwhile, governor Mutahi Kahiga donated 18,000 packets of sanitary towels to more than 7,155 girls in all public primary schools to ensure they continue attending classes without interruption as well as alleviate psychological torture on girls from poor backgrounds.