Reviewing mid term achievements of Vision 2030, a Coastal Perspective

  

Date Posted: 12/13/2012 1:39:58 PM

Posted By: macawear88  Membership Level: Silver  Total Points: 163

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Vision 2030 is made up of three main pillars; the political pillar, economic pillar and the social pillar. The main issues touching on the children welfare fall under social pillar of the Vision 2030. This does not mean that the other pillar do not affect in any way children rights. The discussion mainly took a social approach as the members present thought it was the best way to do so.

The Vision 2030 has many goals and endeavors to be comprehensive enough to include all calibers of people. The review is mainly aimed to unveil any sector or part of the implementation that is in need of urgent reform or attention. The REVIEWERS, in its review was guided by the key pointers that have been provided under social pillars. Below is a cursory description on the review conducted by the REVIEWERS basing on the different pointers available under the social pillar of the Vision 2030.
i. Education and Training
The vision expressly notes that education and training is indispensable in achieving it. as a result the government had several targets to ensure that education and training is well facilitated. However, in the implementation of these strategies, there are some areas that need to be addressed properly.
a) Rolling out of the Free Primary and Day secondary education
The government introduced Free Primary education as part of the implementation of the Vision 2030. This is despite the fact that FPE began years before the introduction of the Vision 2030.
In its review, the REVIEWERS raises the question; how quality is the free primary education? The ratio between teachers to pupil is hindering the quality of service to be delivered. Further, the corruption and other political interferences on the implementation of the program is negatively affecting the service delivery.
b) Employment of 28,000 teachers
While the vision provided a governmental plan of

employing 28,000 teachers, it was not clear what criterion was used to reach that figure. Further, it emerged that the network lacked enough capacity to ensure whether indeed the government has employed these teachers.
It remains unclear whether The 28,000 teachers the government sought to employ were to be deployed to primary schools or secondary schools. Apart from that, it was not clear whether the government had factored in the special needs student and pupils.
c) Expansion of existing schools
It is quite obvious that the FPE program injects a high number of pupils into schools. It therefore becomes reasonable that the government develop and expands the current existing institution in order to make them be able to accommodate the rising number of pupils.
Expansion should not be construed to mean buildings and infrastructure alone. It should increase facilities such as books and stationery. Further, the vision is vague in terms of how this shall be implemented.
d) Build atleast one boarding school in each arid and semi arid counties
The REVIEWERS realized that the implementation of this is underway. Again the network has no full capacity to determine the extent to which this has been realized. In Kinango, a member observed, there was a boarding primary built in achievement of this.
Shortcoming
One acute short coming in the implementation program is the fact that the correctional institutions such as Borstal Institution have been left out. In deed these institution harbor children who should be part of the Vision. The Vision has not mentioned anything directly towards promoting education standards of the Borstal institutions.
ii. Health program
The main target of the Health program was to ensure that there were equitable and healthcare standards to all citizens. The REVIEWERS noted that children were affected with poor health service in two levels. The first one involves children who cannot access proper health care. The second level involves children whose parents and guardians have been affected by illness.
It was noted that the government had a means providing training to community based health care providers. The challenge has been maintaining these health care providers since most of the workers move to greener pastures because the government is not sustaining them well. In training these health care workers the government put a condition that they had to come from the constituency in which they were to serve. It emerged that there are some communities where it was hard to find people with the required qualification for the training. As a result, the government had to engage people without the requisite know-how.
iii. Environment
The government has better structures to cater for environmental needs. Such structures include but not limited to Kenya Wildlife Service. According to the Vision 2030, the government had promised to tackle environmental problems from two broad angles.
The first angle was that of ensuring that there is proper waste management. This is yet to be achieved. In fact, the network noted that the dumpsites at VOK, Mwakirunge and Kibarani were quite hazardous to children welfare. Apart from posing health threats to the children it was a source of distraction from school. Most children would rather not go to school but spend some time at these dumpsites in search of any item that can be sold as scrap.
iv. Housing
Proper housing is not only contemplated in the Vision but also a human and constitutional right. It was noted that while the government promised commitment in upgrading slums, there was no evidence of any action in the Mombasa County and Coast province as a whole.

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