The Government will spend Shs200million to buy sanitary pads for disadvantaged girls in primary schools in the country in the 2013/2014 financial year..
The Ministry of Education has already identified 678,770 (class6-8) vulnerable girls in 9,161 schools drawn from 165 districts to benefit from this, Cabinet Secretary for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Jacob Kaimenyi has disclosed.
The disclosure was mad in a speech read on his behalf by the Acting Director of Administration in the Ministry of Education, Mrs. E. Khaoya during launch of the National Sanitary Towels School Programme at Loboso Primary School Marigat Sub-County in Baringo County yesterday
The launch was presided over by the First Lady, Mrs. Margaret Kenyatta. Several organizations, among them African Cotton Industries, Royal Media Services among other helped organize the vent dubbed Inua Dada.
The First Lady expressed concern that one million girls miss at least 4 days of schooling every month due to maturation factors.
“As a result, they lose up to one and a half months of pupil/teacher contact time,” she noted, saying the nation requires addressing the problem urgently.
Prof. Kaimenyi said the country allocated Shs5240million during the 2011/2012, and the 2012/2013 financial year in providing sanitary towels to girls.
It benefited benefiting 443,858 girls in public primary schools from 82 targeted districts in the 2011/2012 financial year, he noted, adding that some 472,693 disadvantaged girls in public primary and 11,664 girls from special primary and secondary schools in 124 districts in 44 Counties benefited in the 2012/2013 financial year.
