Father Chris Barasa of St Carjetan’s Sirimba Catholic Church in Bunyala Sub County of Busia County will remain deeply rooted in the mind of each parent who lacked the financial muscle to take their children to secondary school, vocational training centers, and or university.
A majority of impoverished parents, majorly those from the flood-prone Budalangi constituency had been unable to cater for the education of their children.
This is owing to the high cost of living coupled with the high poverty level that has in the real sense seen
Currently, the majority of residents from Bunyala South who had been pushed out of their homes by the overflow of Lake Victoria are still camping at Bunyala cultural center.
This compelled the parents to relocate their children to other nearby primary schools to enable them to continue with their education.
The inability of a section of parents to fund the education of their children had resulted in a majority of brilliant children ending up dropping out of school prematurely due to a lack of fees.
“The parish had, through the respective primary and secondary school heads, identified a lot of orphaned children in Bunyala Sub County that needed financial support in the furtherance and realization of their academic dream,” said Fr Chris.
The situation had been made even worse by the allocation of a minimal amount of county and constituency education bursary funds.
The funding is inconsistent and on most occasions, issued out based on “who is who”, locking out numerous needy children and infringing their right to education.
This is where the principled, compassionate, and sympathetic catholic parish father, who has won the heart of the beneficiaries of his education project, especially widows and widowers, comes in.
Father Barasa says when he came to St Carjetan’s Sirimba Catholic parish in the year 2008, education levels, especially in primary schools were very low.
The situation resulted from a shortage of teachers and rampant cases of early pregnancy he emphasized had led to a high school dropout rate that saw only a few students going to high school.
“The transition rate from primary to secondary was very low and almost below 25 percent at that time, so we decided to focus on schools in the first year by engaging in a marathon and interactive discussion in collaboration with the Bunyala Sub County Education Board and the Ministry of Education and Christian community aimed at improving on the alarmingly low level of education in Bunyala Sub County and Busia County at large,” Father Barasa recounts.
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He notes that the effort of the status quo has eventually raised the transition rate in Bunyala Sub County to an all-time high today.
“The hundred percent transition we have so far recorded in Sirimba and nearly all other primary schools in this parish has been achieved due to discipline and commitment on the part of teachers, students, parents, and other education stakeholders,” he adds.
The Father says that majority of their beneficiaries are orphans under the care of their grandmothers and guardians following the demise of their parents
As a pilot project, the parish picked fifteen 15 pupils comprising of 7 boys and 8 girls and enrolled them at Saint Augustine Butunyi Boys in Butula Sub County and Nangina Girls Primary school boarding in Samia Sub County so as to give them a better education.
“We had been paying quite a lot of money for the fifteen students for a number of years, so the parish and the community unanimously resolved to pull their resources together so as to facilitate the construction of our own boarding facilities after realizing that the mission and the community were paying a lot of money for the students,” he explains.
The parish in collaboration with the local community had also pulled up resources that eventually led to the construction of a well-equipped library at the school so as to enhance the reading culture which is, indeed essential as it improves the fluency and reasoning power of the students.
Father Chris further confided to The Scholar Media that a good number of students supported by the mission are pursuing various disciplines among them Theology, Law, Medicine and Doctorate to mention just but a few in various public and private universities locally and abroad.
He attributed the attainment of 100 percent transition level to commitment on the part of teachers, parents, students, and other education stakeholders and non-political interference in education matters hence leading to the high stands of academic performance in Bunyala Sub County.
The catholic parish Father had on the other hand lauded the Mariana Education Project from Nangina Catholic Mission for chipping in to join hands with St Carjetan’s Sirimba Catholic Mission and other well-wishers in supporting the education of needy students in Bunyala Sub County.
“I am unable to hide my pride considering that one of our products is the Deputy Laboratory Officer in charge of Bunyala Sub County,” said Father Barasa.
Commenting on the introduction of free primary education by the national government in 2003 by the late President Mwai Kibaki, Fr Chris said the program has had some impact.
He said the community has positively embraced the introduction of the same taking into consideration the fact that initially, a big number of school-going children had opted to remain at home due to lack of fees.
Majority of them had therefore opted to engage in sand harvesting and fishing along the banks of River Nzoia at the expense of education.
“The introduction of free primary and secondary education has at least had some impact.
This is because before this, a big number of children from Bunyala who had reached the age of going to school couldn’t do so as their parents had not been in a position to afford to pay the exorbitant levies that were being charged by their respective schools,” he said.
The priest, however, noted education is not all that free owing to the allocation of a minimal amount of vote head to public primary schools by the ministry of education, adding that the payment of high levies has seen a big number of pupils especially those from poor households staying away from school.
“Frankly speaking, education is not all that free. Various public primary schools have been charging parents a lot of levies citing few vote-heads from the ministry of education,” Father Barasa noted.
To enable the pupils to remain in school, the ministry of education should consider increasing the vote-head,” he said, adding that there was also an urgent need on the part of the government to build additional infrastructure aimed at curb over-congestion of students.
“The Teachers Service Commission [TSC] should move with speed and do everything at its disposal to hire more teachers to curb the high shortfall of teachers considering that presently the pupil; teacher ratio is 120:1.
This has drastically affected academic performance,” added the catholic parish priest.