By KTAMO W. RONNY
For decades, science education in the vast, arid reaches of Marsabit County was an exercise in imagination. Teachers in remote schools drew test tubes on blackboards with chalk, and students memorized complex biological pathways and chemical formulas from textbooks without ever holding a pipette or watching a reaction unfold. In national examinations, children from northern Kenya competed on an uneven playing field against urban peers who enjoyed laboratory infrastructure.
Today, that narrative is being aggressively rewritten. The School Equipment Production Unit (SEPU)—a state agency under the Ministry of Education—in sustained partnership with the international humanitarian organization Concern Worldwide, has launched an educational overhaul. By combining specialized technical manufacturing with deep-rooted community delivery systems, this joint initiative is driving a practical revolution in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) teaching across the county’s Junior Secondary Schools (JSS).
Bridging the Frontier Infrastructure Gap
Marsabit County is Kenya’s second-largest county by landmass, yet it remains one of the most structurally marginalized. Characterized by expansive rocky terrains, a predominantly pastoralist economy, and severe climate-induced shocks, the region faces immense logistical hurdles. Building permanent brick-and-mortar science laboratories in every far-flung school is financially infeasible for local boards.
To overcome this, SEPU has deployed an engineered solution: the Mobile Laboratory Unit and Integrated Science Kits. Instead of requiring a dedicated building with complex plumbing systems, these mobile labs are highly durable, secure wooden workstations mounted on rugged caster wheels.
Each mobile laboratory is entirely self-contained, featuring:
• An independent integrated gas tap and burner system.
• A built-in water container and chemical-resistant drainage sink.
• Secure lockable storage compartments packed with specialized glassware, reagents, and curriculum-aligned tools.
By transforming any standard classroom into a fully functional laboratory within minutes, this localized innovation bypasses the need for multi-million-shilling infrastructure projects.
Empowering Teachers to Move Beyond Theory
Distributing high-grade apparatus is only half the battle. For a STEM revolution to take root, educators themselves must be comfortable guiding experiential learning. Kenya’s transition to Competency-Based Education (CBE) placed an immediate and heavy demand on junior secondary instructors to deliver hands-on practical lessons. In many instances, teachers who lacked prior practical exposure felt under-equipped to operate modern apparatus.
Addressing this gap, SEPU’s technical production experts roll out extensive localized teacher-capacity training during the delivery of these essential teaching and learning resources across Marsabit’s sub-counties.
Teachers are trained on the anatomy of the mobile labs, proper storage of volatile reagents, and emergency protocols for handling chemicals in high-temperature arid environments. Instructors also practice micro-chemistry techniques—methods that use minimal quantities of chemicals to achieve clear experimental results, drastically extending the shelf-life of each kit. Educators learn how to integrate local resources (such as plant extracts for pH indicators or local soils for filtration lessons) alongside standard SEPU glassware, grounding abstract concepts in students’ immediate environment.
This instructional shift effectively transforms the role of the teacher from a rigid, dictatorial lecturer into an active facilitator of scientific inquiry.
Prior to this intervention, the infrastructural gap in the region was severe, with only 30 out of 157 Junior Secondary Schools in Marsabit County possessing any form of functional science laboratory.
Through the “Promoting Access to STEM Education” project—a partnership between Concern Worldwide, the School Equipment Production Unit (SEPU), and funded by Datatec—the initiative has equipped 25 Junior Secondary Schools in Marsabit County with modern science kits and mobile laboratories.
Mr Katamo is the head of corporate communications at the School Equipment Production Unit (SEPU).
