Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha is strongly opposed to a proposal seeking to lower the age of sexual consent to 16 years.
The CS says the proposal is ill-advised. He wants the age of sexual consent in Kenya raised to 21 years instead.
According to Magoha, teenagers have the rest of their life to engage in sex.
“You will have the rest of your life to have sex, why do you want to be thinking about sex at 16 years?
“As Africans, we must stop using other people’s standards as our standards. My opinion is that the age should be increased to 21,” Prof Magoha told the Senate Committee on Education on Thursday.
He implored parents to take responsibility and restrict children’s access to porn at home. Prof Magoha noted if parents stop leaving the role of parenting to house helps, the rate of teenage pregnancies will drop significantly.
He said the Education Ministry has put in place measures to curb cases of teenage pregnancies in schools.
One of the measures, he said, is turning day schools into boarding schools in areas where cases of teenage pregnancies are rampant.
Prof Magoha also noted that teachers who impregnate school girls have been punished.
