South Rift governors oppose taking ECDE to national government

Two governors from the South Rift region have said that the counties will not cede any of the devolved functions to the national government.

Led by Kericho governor Eric Mutai and his Bomet counterpart Hillary Barchok, they said the proposal to revert Early Childhood Development Education(ECDE) to the national government was misinformed.

They made the remarks during the flagging off of a Sh141 million scholarship for secondary and Vocational Training learners by the Bomet county government at Bomet Green Stadium.

During the scholarship programme, Bomet County offered a full scholarship to 250 bright and needy students joining form one next week and 625 students joining the Vocational Training Centre to acquire skills that can earn them a living.

“We will not cede an inch of the devolved functions and the proposal by the Presidential Working Party on Education reforms to have ECDE taken back is a misadventure that we will fight tooth and nail,” said Mutai.

 Mutai, who is also the Council of Governors Education Committee Chairman, said the national government should collaborate with the county to strengthen functions through increased funding.

The governor was reacting to the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms appointed by President William Ruto to collect views on all the stakeholders concerning education matters.

In a proposal by the education task force, they recommended that employment of EDCE teachers remain in the hands of the county government but the payment should be made under the Teachers Service Commission.

Mutai added that the function of the ECDE was transferred to the counties without funding and its function was not taken into consideration during the devolution process.

“When counties came into place, the learners were studying without formal structures as with others learning in churches, under trees but now they have invested in them and constructed good classrooms,” he said.

The county boss said that ten years down the line, great strides have been made in the ECDE and it is wrong for the national government to start reverting the function and yet the devolved units laboured their way towards its realization.

The governor said that the main reason why counties do not pay the teachers in time is because the money meant to pay those teachers has not been devolved by the national government.

“As COG, we require Sh5 billion conditional grant so that we can uniformly pay our teachers,” he said.

Mutai also demanded that the national government release Sh3 Billion in conditional grants to counties that used to support learning in vocational learning centres that were held by the national government in 2018 by the former regime.

On his part, Barchok said that Early Childhood Development Education has been a success through the efforts of the governors.

“We are requesting the national government that the employment of ECDE teachers remain in the hands of county governments but we can get conditional grants that will help the programme to be successful,” he said.

The county boss said that the national government should support all the programmes in the 47 counties so that early learners and teachers do not suffer as a result of a few challenges.