Education, Sports, Youth Affairs, Culture and Heritage

Scolastica J. Tuwei has a Master of Education from Kisii University and a Bachelor of Education, Arts, from Moi University.

She is a dynamic and goal-oriented person with self-determination focused on quality end products that meet organizational set objective, having worked at Kisii University as an Administrator during her Master’s degree program.

In her initial studies, Tuwei attended Kapnyeberai Secondary School and ACK Tegat Primary.

After graduating at Kericho Teachers Training College , she worked as a teacher at Kapsile Primary, Chemartim Primary, Fr. Khun Academu and Keteng Primary.

Tuwei, in her career path, has been awarded several awards including Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility at Kisii University, and officiated the Nandi County Music Festival official, Rift Valley Regional Music Festival official, Nakuru Region Music Festival and the Eldoret Campus Cultural Day at Kisii University.

She also facilitated the Women Empowerment and enhancement training, Pastors Enhancement Training Programme at Kisii University

She is a Women Empowerment Specialist for Kericho And Kisumu Counties.

BACKGROUND

The mandate of Education, Research and Vocational Training Department is to execute the devolved functions related to county pre-primary education, village polytechnics, home craft centres and child care facilities as per requirements of the Constitution of Kenya 2010.

BURSARIES

The department of education has completed the disbursement of Ksh 60 million in form of bursaries to over 6000 needy students. The beneficiaries include: students in universities, vocational training centres (VTC’S,) high schools and special needs students. The process of disbursement was arrived at through public participation with Consultations from administrative officers at grassroots level so as to identify the needy students who really deserved these bursaries

ECDE

The department initiated an ECDE project that will see 60 centres constructed across the county each ward being allocated 2 centres. The placement of these ECDE centres was again achieved through public participation where there was need to identify areas that lack ECDE facilities yet they have a considerable population of children and also reduce the amount of distance walked by these children to access the existing ECDE centres

VOCATIONAL TRAINING CENTRES (VTCs)

The department of Education and Vocational Training has 13 VTCs across the county with a total of 117 instructors. The county government is planning to hire more instructors so as to reduce instructor trainee ratio significantly. The county government in partnership with Computer for Schools Kenya (CFSK) has acquired over 300 computers with servers. This partnership will see the CfSK install these computers in all the computer labs in the Vocational Training Centres (VTCs).

The county government also supports the VTCs by providing subsidized youth polytechnic tuition fee (SYPT) of Ksh15, 000 per trainee per year.

Other Key Milestones

The establishment of the Proposed Koitalel University which is a Constituent College of Nairobi University. The County has obtained two parcels of land within Nandi-hills and Chesumei Sub-counties where the main campus and one of the campuses for the proposed University will sit respectively.

The Department of Education and Vocational Training has the overall responsibility of overseeing pre-primary, home craft centres, child care facilities and Vocational Training. Its mandate is basically to execute the devolved function of education as captured in the Constitution of 2010.

In its endeavor to actualize this mandate, the department is currently undertaking a massive project of constructing 60 ECDE Centres across the county (2 per ward). The construction is done by VTCs under the supervision of public works. The completion of this project and other subsequent projects will herald in Nandi County a consistent development of quality infrastructure for our institutions. It is also expected to improve on the learning environment and eventually the quality of education given to our children. After this, the department intends to provide teaching and learning materials to these centres to make teaching and learning easy and enjoyable.

For teaching to be effective, adequate qualified teachers must be available in our institutions. The department will make all possible efforts to address this issue and with the available resources we will endeavor to have the minimum required number of teachers for each centre.

On the side of Vocational Training, the department has plans and arrangements in the next financial year that will drastically change the concept of vocational training. Apart from facilitating the institutions in terms of purchase of tools and critical equipment for training, we want to focus on linking up these centres with other stakeholders in this sector to provide internship for trainees. This will provide the requisite impetus and motivation to our trainees that there is hope after their training. We expect to have further consultative discussions with more of these stakeholders.

The department also expects to look into the possibility of creating centres of specialization by allowing the centres to identify courses for specialization (the legal implication not withstanding). This arrangement will make it easy and cheap for the department to provide facilities and instructors to these institutions.

Through the Nandi County Education Fund Act, 2016, the department is mandated to give bursaries to needy students. In the financial year 2017/2018, the department disbursed bursaries amounting to Ksh. 60,000,000 to 6434 beneficiaries. We realize that these amounts are not adequate compared to the number of applicants (12410). The department hopes that in future it can get more money for this purpose.

Finally, education is critical in the county’s economic development, therefore, there is need for maximum cooperation from the Nandi County citizens. The residents of this county should trust and support the county government of Nandi in its efforts to transform education in tandem with the transformative agenda of the*Tuga Tai* Manifesto.

THANK YOU.