School management boards told to create proper mechanisms to carter for students with special needs

Written by Rosemary Wachiye

Primary School Heads and school management board members listen to an Education officer Mr. Elija Owiti during a training workshop in Bungoma. [Photo/Rosemary Wachiye/WestFm] Head teachers, chairmen and treasurers of primary school management committees in the Larger Bungoma District are have been enlightened on the importance of good management and administration in schools towards improving school and student performance. Officers from the Ministry of Education who are the facilitators of the event and are keen on ensuring that the school management boards  are well versed with good management skills to improve performance in schools. An officer from the District Education Office in Bungoma District, Mr. Elija Owiti urged the members to ensure that the physically challenged pupils are accorded necessary attention and create a way to make them feel as equally as important as any other normal children.  “Ensure your teachers are all round to be able to handle both the normal children and the physically challenged pupils and offer their services,” said Mr. Owiti Primary schools are divided into Early Child Development (ECD), Lower primary from 1, 2, 3, middle primary class 4, 5, 6 and upper primary class 7 and 8. Mr. Owiti told the ECD teachers to nurture the children by teaching them in mother tongue language before teaching them English and Swahili. He added that computer teaching should begin at an early age for easy grasping. He said that intelligent quotient depends on the development of a child since childhood. “If you delay a child to learn he becomes an idiot and if you teach him fast he becomes a genius, parents should take their children to school early for better growth,” said Mr. Owiti Continuous assessment tests, he said, were very important and that pupils should regularly take the examination to monitor their performance and judge how the child has learnt. The schools were urged to always have a benchmark of comparing themselves with the other good performing schools so as to be able to judge their performance in regard to the other schools.