By Peter Ochieng
Education Cabinet (CS) Ezekiel Machogu has set an ambitious plan of planting over 30 million trees this year.
The plan set out for his ministry, the CS says is geared towards boasting Kenya Kwanza administration’s agenda of planting 15 billion trees by 2032.
Speaking while presiding over Kisumu National Polytechnic’s 10th graduation ceremony, Machogu said they plan to plant 35 million trees this year (2024).
“As you are aware, the government is keen to plant 15 billion trees by 2032 as a measure of mitigating the adverse effects of climate change. The ministry of education intends to plant 35 million trees this year,” he said.
“On that note, I encourage each student to strive to plant at least 10 trees per year, and each individual tutor to plant 30 trees this year. I believe our joint efforts will help the government achieve it’s target and confront the adverse effects of climate change.”
4,203 students graduated on Friday, after satisfying the board of examiners, in various courses, with graduants falling in the categories of artisan, craft, diploma and higher national diploma.
Machogu said only 770 graduants of the over 4,000 took up engineering courses.
“When I looked at the records of the 4,203 students graduating today, I noticed that only 770 are graduating from engineering courses, comprising 18% of the graduants. This number is quite low, given that Kenya wants to industrialise by 2030,” said the CS.
With a student population of 11,438, the CS acknowledged that Kisumu National Polytechnic is among institutions with the highest student enrollment in the country.
The institution has 151 tutors employed by the government and 155 others, employed on contract by the Polytechnic’s council.
“I do hope that progressively, we shall have more tutors absorbed by government to ease the financial burden to the institution,” said Machogu.
He added that this financial year, the Kenya Kwanza administration has committed Sh28.3 billion to the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) sector, besides initiating the recruitment of 2,000 new tutors.
Plans are also underway to equip the over 70 TVETs in the country with state-of-the-art equipment, in partnership with the Chinese government.