Council Of Governors Rejects Ruto Taskforce Recommendations

The Council of Governors (COG) has rejected the recommendations of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms  (PWPER) on Early Child Development Education (ECDE). 

In a statement on Wednesday, January 10, COG said PWPER recommendations pull back the efforts made by devolution in the country.

The Presidential taskforce in its report recommended ECDE centers which are currently being run by county governments to be managed by Primary School head teachers.

The report also proposed the Ministry of Education, the COG, and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) develop an inter-governmental agreement on hiring and renumerating pre-primary teachers to ensure harmonization of pay.

The COG has strongly objected to the proposals arguing that counties are managing approximately 30,400 pre-primary schools, have employed over 54,000 pre-primary teachers and over 2.3 million children are accessing pre-primary education across the Counties with no specific financial resource having been devolved to support the pre-primary education function.

“The recommendations of the PWPER are unacceptable to the Council as they heavily claw back on Devolution. Therefore; COG categorically does not agree & rejects the recommendations in entirety to the extent that they undermine the basic structure & framework of the constitution,” the statement read in part.

COG also announced it will not take part in any process to legislate the PWPER recommendations including the proposed Inter-Governmental Relations Technical Committee meeting.

“COG has withdrawn its participation from any process that seeks to legislate the recommendations contained in the report. This includes the proposed meeting called by IGRTC_KE scheduled for 16th January 2023,” COG added.

The Council further said the county governments will continue to manage ECDE centers as constitutionally assigned.