Invest more in education for lasting peace and growth in arid areas

When The Standard on Sunday highlighted the dire state of Nachurur Primary School in Tiaty constituency, Baringo County, I felt a tinge of huge frustration. Majority of Kenyans were stunned to learn that some 300 pupils are attended to by only two teachers and that they study under trees with snakes and cows for companions.

However, for Baringo residents, decades of neglect and marginalisation coupled with persistent inter-ethnic conflict have made this normality for our children. Most communities here are nomadic pastoralists, and we depend on livestock for survival. As a young man from the IIchamus community, a minority, my entire childhood was spent in this very activity, looking after our animals, searching for pastures and water and protecting our homestead. It is my parents’ commitment to education that ensured I attended school, culminating in my graduating from the University of Nairobi. Still, for the majority of children in semi-arid areas, attaining decent education is often times a farfetched dream.