Precious Talents shut, owner to be arraigned
By Irene Githinji and Mercy Mwai
The fate of Precious Talents Top School seems sealed after the government revoked its operating licence and ordered it closed.
And last evening, the school’s proprietor, Moses Wainaina, was arrested and will be arraigned this morning.
According to Nairobi area police boss Philip Ndolo, Wainaina may face charges of murder and putting up a building without approval.
Announcing the decision yesterday, Education Cabinet secretary Prof George Magoha said the school had violated all compliance requirements— adequate facilities, qualified teachers and enrolment numbers— to ensure quality education standards.
“These conditions do not warrant continued existence of the school and thus the task force has recommended revocation of certificate and closure,” he said, adding that further investigations will be conducted on the school owner, who will be prosecuted if he is found to be criminally culpable.
Further probe
“Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Director of Public Prosecutions will carry out further investigations on the proprietor for possible criminal culpability,” he added.
Investigations also revealed that Precious Talents Top School, whose classroom collapsed on Monday morning killing seven pupils and leaving 64 others injured, was registered to hold 340 pupils from Early Childhood Education to Class Eight but had an enrollment of about 800 children.
Magoha said the learners will be moved to neighbouring primary schools.
480 learners will be placed at Ngong Forest Primary school, 180 at Jamhuri Primary and another 130 sent to Riruta Satellite Primary. The ministry will provide additional desks and books specific to the pet project Competence-based Curriculum (CBC).
The school also had a play group with 150 children contrary to the ministry’s regulations, with the CS saying they will now stay at home until they attain school-going age.
Investigations further revealed that the collapsed building was a one-storey semi-permanent building whose roof and walls were made of iron sheets while the slab on the upper floor was made with concrete reinforced with chain link and supported by wooden poles and metal bars.
Additionally, the building that collapsed was constructed in April 2014 though there were neither documents showing approvals, architectural designs nor was it supervised during construction.
“The school had not adhered to ministerial guidelines on health, security and safety in that there was no fire preparedness, no fire extinguishers or assembly points, doors of classes were not fixed according to recommended guidelines, poor lighting and windows had fixed wire mesh,” read the report.
In hospital
Out of 69 learners taken to Kenyatta National Hospital, 67 were treated and discharged, one is to be discharged today and another is still in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
As far as staffing was concerned, only six out of 28 teachers could verify registration with Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
The CS presented the findings of investigations after inspecting schools in Kangemi and closed another, Pama Academy.
Magoha said that Pama, which has 472 learners, had similar structures as those of Precious Talents with the offcut wood providing support rotting away.
“We have ordered that Pama Academy be closed with immediate effect and children be divided on pro-rata basis between New Kihumbuini and Kihumbuini Primary schools respectively,” the CS said.
At the same time, he said Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in slums will be regulated to ensure no one trades with the lives of children saying the government will not allow calamities to happen again.
“The government’s is the gold standard. If people argue there is no space, we can build good structures that go up several storeys. For those schools on the ground floor and do not meet threshold, we may wait but they may not reopen in January and we will tell them on time... we will play hard ball,” he said.
Yesterday in Parliament, Magoha claimed cartels are taking advantage of parents to get them to enrol their children to “make-shift schools like the Precious Talents”.
He cartels are operating as nongovernmental organisations to confuse parents and convince them to enroll to schools kilometres away from their homes yet a school like Ngong Primary had no pupils.
