John Muganda And Ali Abdi
17 April 2008
Nairobi — About 17,500 pupils in Mt Elgon District missed first term studies due to insecurity.
At the same time, 600 teachers from 25 schools in Chebyuk and Emia locations of Kopsiro divisions fled the area and have only been reporting to the District Education Office while others were deployed to stations in safer divisions.
Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) branch executive secretary, Mr Will Maasai, said yesterday some of the pupils and their parents ran away at the height of clashes between Soy and Ndorobo clans and are camping at market centres in Bungoma, Trans-Nzoia and Uasin Gishu districts.
He said for the last two years, schools had been on and off each time the clashes started.
He, however, commended the Government for starting a military operation in the district.
The trade union official added that parents who had been staying in the camps should be supplied with farm inputs so they could plant before the end of the rainy season.
Maasai was addressing the Press in Bungoma town.
Meanwhile, Marsabit District has not conducted inspection of schools and audit funds under the Free Primary Education due to lack of personnel.
The larger Marsabit, now divided into Saku, Chalbi and Laisamis, has not carried out the mandatory quality assurance inspections in public schools since last year, citing lack of vehicles.
The District Education Officer, Mr Elkana Nyaga, said the district, measuring about 66,000 square kilometres, had one inspector and an auditor.
One vehicle attached to the official also serves the rest of the district.
Teacher shortage and failure to balance staffs, it further emerged, had left many schools in Laisamis and North Horr with severe shortage.
Nyaga was responding to accusations against him by Knut, Marsabit branch, that he was behind the state of affairs.
Knut, led by its executive secretary, Mr Dominic Godana, said inspection and auditing of schools and staff balancing could not be carried out due to 'high handedness' of the DEO.
"Shortage of teachers, personnel and vehicles had been with us in the past. He would have borrowed vehicles from other departments. We want to know how funds meant for the exercises were spent," said the unionist.
There were demonstrations in Marsabit town in the last three weeks with Knut calling on the Government to probe the education office over transfer of teachers, irregular promotion and use of the free primary education and school feeding programme funds.
The DEO said schools outside Saku, which falls within Marsabit town, were overstaffed because teachers transferred to schools in remote Laisamis and North Horr refused to move.
However, Godana lamented that it was the official's responsibility to implement transfers and ensure that there was staff balancing in the three new districts.
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