Children with hidden or unexploited talents in Mombasa have received a major boost following the development of a special tool by the County which nurtures pupils’ talent and monitors learning.
Mombasa county Department of Education and Children (DOEC) has partnered with the Kenya Library Services (KLS), ministry of education, Teachers Service Commission (TSC), and other partners have established information centers at schools where pupils will be assisted in learning and talent exploitation.
They have also developed the tool dubbed Universal Library Card, for recording progress of every pupils in these centers.
The information centers titled Maktaba centers, to be launched later this month, are going to be stationed at 23 selected public primary schools and will be places where different activities that shape the performance and talent of every pupil shall be taking place.
Some of the schools involved in the program include Chaani Primary, Bomu, Amani,Kwa Jomvu,Bamburi and Likoni Primary schools.
“The maktaba centers are not just going to be the normal library that you know but will be a place where the child of Mombasa shall get added value for their life.
Different activities shall be taking place around this center. It will be a learning and homework center, place where students can read and borrow books and a place where talent identification and exposure shall happen,” said DOEC Maktaba Consultant Samuel Ngugi.
In every maktaba center, there will be a trained teacher and librarian who will be responsible for guiding and coaching students who wish to study, updating their records and identifying their talent.
“Anything that they need to measure like school performance of the child after introduction to the maktaba programme will be done with the help of teachers who besides interaction, will send regular information to the librarian.
Inadequate text books, lack of infrastructure and like challenges that resulted to poor performance of pupils in schools in Mombasa will no longer be a problem,” Mr Ngugi added.
Among the organizations working with the Department in the program are Tuchipike Africa, who will nurture students’ music talent, Little Theatre-acting and Little Sports who will identify sporting talent.
The organizations are currently equipping the maktaba centers with facilities in line with the thematic areas they will be training pupils on.
The Universal library card that will be every child’s property, is the special card that will then be used to access and update the record of every child enrolled in the maktaba center programme in the computer system when they visit the centers to learn.
Every record will contain the name of the child, history such as how the child used to be before starting the programme, the geographical location of the child or where they live, the parents of the child, the school they go to and the performance of the child after the maktaba programme.
The card that will be the size of an ATM card, will have a barcode for scanning the record of the child on the computer and will have the graphics of the maktaba center, the passport photo of the child and the maktaba card library number.
Mr Ngugi said the schools which they identified for use in this plan, have the necessary infrastructure and security to handle the activities of the maktaba center.
They will also be the learning centers for pupils from other schools neighboring them which do not yet have the infrastructure for development of the centers.
“All these schools will also be functioning as a center that will serve three to five neighboring schools surrounding them. We are currently in the final stages of ‘developing’ them and what is left is repainting and rebranding the institutions as centers,” added Mr Ngugi.
Mombasa County Executive for Education Tendai Lewa Mtana said the Universal library card will be a tracking tool that will gauge the progress and successes of pupils in Mombasa years after the introduction of the maktaba programme and other education projects.
“The Universal Library Card is what will tell the success story and the journey of a child who right now is receiving a packet of milk in school and where they are going to be years from now.
There is a community of 100,000 children that Governor Joho in 2013 started to establish a relationship with that anybody who wants to question anything can track the life of those children using this card,” said Mr. Mtana.
To equip the maktaba centers, the county has purchased 23,000 story books to shape the reading and writing skills of children of all ages from class one up to class eight while text books are currently being procured.
The card will be used by the child from class one to eight and incase it is lost the child can apply for a replacement at a cost of Sh100.
