A number of secondary schools in Nyeri County are facing congestion owing to the increased number of students.
The increase of students as a result of the near realisation of the 100 percent in transition rate from primary to secondary schools is exerting strain on the existing infrastructural facilities.
Congestion is attributable to lack of expansion programmes implementation to ensure that all pupils who sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations transited to secondary schools.
Kangubiri, Mahiga, Ngandu and Tumutumu secondary schools are among old and giant public secondary schools in Nyeri County which are reeling under the weight of increased student enrolment.
Apprehension is now rife that inadequate facilities in the schools could impact negatively to their performance with the government and education stakeholders being urged to explore ways of enabling the institutions cope with the increased student population.
“Urgent intervention measures are imperative to enable students to study in a more conducive environment” said the Nyeri County Director of Education Jarred Obiero during a County Service Delivery meeting.
Area County Commissioner Fredrick Shisia however said the government was aware of the crippling challenges facing national secondary schools owing to rising student population and that more money would be appropriated to schools to facilitate expansion.
Shisia at the same time sounded a warning to day schools head teachers to stop sending students home on flimsy grounds.
He said some school heads had introduced illegal levies and were “sending students home quietly over the unauthorised levies.”
Shisia said 98.8 per cent of candidates who sat last year’s KCPE in the county had transited to secondary schools.
He said the government through the local administrators, the ‘Nyumba Kumi’ initiative and school heads was tracking the whereabouts of the remaining 1.2 per cent.
By Kiamah Wamutitu
