Early Childhood Development Education

Siaya County is doing extremely well in Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) with an enrolment of 98%. The County has established about 700 ECD centres out of which 340 centres have classrooms constructed and are fully equipped. The total number of ECD teachers stands at 608 against a requirement of 1,450. The data suggests that while the establishment of ECD centres has attracted school attendance and enrolment, challenges remain with respect to teacher to pupil ratio, inadequate classrooms, more than half of existing facilities are yet to be equipped and the school feeding programme is not fully rolled out. Additionally, the county is yet to leverage on ECDE to address early childhood development indicators. It is against this background that this plan will prioritize establishment of new ECD centres, equip existing ECD centres, recruit ECD instructors, and enhance school feeding programs through linkage with commercial systems in agriculture.

Vocational Training

The County has 35 Vocational Training Centres (VTC). There has been minimal investment in the development, equipment and staffing of these centres. Consequently, many of the VTCs have only one county employee and only occasionally receive provisions of learning material, and the majority of the teaching staff are volunteers with little or no supervision. As a result the VTCs do not deliver the curriculum developed nationally hence the courses offered are seen as irrelevant and are not linked to the demands of the prevailing labour market thus the very low enrolment. To address these shortcomings of the VTCs, this plan will prioritise improving infrastructure of existing VTCs and provide requisite equipment and learning materials; structure and finance capitation for VTC students to increase enrolment; link VTC for production of ECD learning and playing materials; recruit VTC instructors and align VTC curriculum to address labour gaps in the County’s agriculture led development strategy.

Social Services

Social services is about providing the basic standards in the delivery of services. Previously, the County has invested in youth, women and PWD empowerment through various social programmes with the net impact being minimal in changing the social environment. The approach in this plan is to focus social services on strategic interventions that address emerging social issues that affect the development of Siaya. This include: programs to ensure inclusivity to service delivery; mainstreaming emerging social issues such as the triple threat of HIV, teenage pregnancies and Gender based Violence (GBV), property rights of widows; community mobilizations targeting the youth and vulnerable members of the society such as widows, orphans and PWDs. This plan will also prioritise development of social amenities for the elderly within the municipalities.