Kilifi,KENYA: Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi has rolled out a Kshs. 50 million free milk program to all public early childhood Development education centers ECD in the County.
According to Kingi, the program is meant to ensure children’s consistency in schools so as to ground a stiff foundation of education in the county.
Speaking on Thursday during the launch, Kingi warned teachers and education staff against mismanaging the program meant to boost the retention rate of children in pre-primary schools.
“This milk is specifically for ECD children and not for primary or secondary school children.Teachers and care givers should also not use this milk to prepare their tea and if we find out any misuse of the milk by any other person other than the intended we will take action against him/her,” warned Kingi.
The first phase is set to run throughout the second term in all 799 public ECD centers across the county.
The program targets 89,000 children with a focus to include even the private ECD centers in the county in the second phase.
“We wanted to include the private schools in the program but due to financial constraints we decided to focus on the public centers,” he added.
In the first phase, the children will get the 200ML packet twice a week and a packet everyday while at school during the second phase.
Kilifi county chief officer for education Emmanuel Katana said already the free milk has been distributed to five out of the seven sub counties in the county and the two will receive their share by the end of Friday this week.
“The program was to start much earlier but we had several challenges and we now have every reason to smile as the program is now here with us. This will boost the enrollment in our ECD centers and we are ready for the challenge as we have plans to put up more ECD centers,” said Katana.
