Pupils urged to embrace sciences

By KELVIN KARANI

MOMBASA, Kenya: Mombasa County Executive member in charge of education, Abdulkadir Kike, has blamed parents and peer pressure for the region’s poor performance in science subjects.

Kike was speaking during the awarding of Mombasa county students who excelled in sciences after last year’s national examinations.

He said it is the parents’ responsibility to monitor their children’s performance, keeping an eye out for areas where they appear weak.

“Parents must always ensure that they know how their children are performing. Most parents discourage their children when it comes to sciences, but there is nothing hard about these subjects. All that is needed is an attitude change,” he said.

Kike said parents should also ensure their children do not get involved with peer groups that discourage them or force them to lose their educational values.

He said negative peer pressure has played a major rate in the poor transition rate among students in Mombasa County.

TRANSITION RATE

Kike said the county government is committed to ensuring that the number of students transitioning from primary to secondary school and to university increases.

“We have a transition rate of about 34 per cent for pupils moving from primary school to secondary schools and 21 per cent for those moving from secondary school to universities and this percentage is worrying. We want to have a transition rate of 42 per cent and 30 percent for primary and secondary school respectively,” he said.

Jomvu Member of Parliament Badi Twalib said students need to embrace science and mathematics subjects in order to play a part in the industrialisation sector of Vision 2030.

SCIENCE GRADUATES

He said 90 per cent of global functions are supported by technology originating from sciences adding that for a nation to be industrialised, it has to produce graduates who excel in sciences.

“It would be a big shame for our country to have to import engineers, technicians and doctors just because we cannot produce our own,” he said.

Twalib asked students to ensure they shun anyone who tries to discourage them from pursuing science subjects, saying there is nothing difficult about them.