Mombasa County schools have been registering poor performance in previous national examinations and the county government is looking to turn this around.
Through the Governor‘s school holiday mentorship program, the county is looking to ensure learners are engaged during the holidays.
In the program, secondary school learners get mentorship from different lectures on career guidance, issues of extremism, drugs, and even the reading culture.
“We give them a daily stipend of sh.400 (sh.250 for bursary and sh.150 pocket money/ allowance). By doing this we have helped both the student and the parent,” said Mombasa County Education CECM Dr. Mbwarali Kame.
“We can say the program has been a success because the number of students that have registered for the program surpassed our target,” he added.
Apart from drugs, Dr. Mbwarali says poor reading culture has been a factor contributing to the poor performance in Mombasa schools.
“Govn. Abdulswamad has come up with a plan to revive the reading culture among our students. Through the mentorship program, issues of not knowing the whereabouts of our students when schools are closed and even students abandoning their books during the holidays are taken care of. So we know where they are and they also know where their books are,” said the education CEC.
Meanwhile, Dr. Mbwarali has said the County government has planned to ensure that all secondary schools in the County have visited the MV. Logos Hope; World’s largest floating library which docked in Mombasa on Tuesday.
Also read: Reading on the waters: World’s largest floating library arrives in Mombasa
He said the county is also planning to purchase books from the vessel and distribute them to schools within the county.
“The school visits will be in shifts and also rotate within the different sub-counties in Mombasa for the 45 days that the ship will be here, so if today we bring students from Mvita sub-county then tomorrow we bring students from Nyali or Jomvu sub-county, and so on until we cover all the schools in the county,” said Dr. Mbwarali.
“For other counties, we will be writing a letter to them telling them that MV. Logos Hope is here and if they want to collaborate we will also plan and schedule how students from the different counties can board the vessel,” he added.
