By Enock Okong’o
Kisii County Education Board has closed Karungu SDA Secondary School in Etago sub county after students failed to report during reopening of the first term.
Speaking at the school, the Board Chairman Prof. Henry Onderi said that only one student reported at the school
“It is only one student who reported at the school this year so we found it prudent to close it,” he said.
The Chairman blamed parents who demanded the starting of clan-based schools.
He said that the school is situated near Kiagware Secondary school and wondered why the parents started it instead of combining resources to strengthen the former.
Karungu is a public secondary school that was started more than 10 years ago under a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) sponsorship with the help of the government and had 9 teachers employed by the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC).
Professor Onderi declared the school’s Board of Management dissolved adding that that the school will not be reopened until it gets enough student enrollment.
“From today the Board of Management in school ceases to exist because of its incompetence,” declared the chairman.
Kisii County Director of Education Pius Ngoma said that its teachers will be deployed to other stations where their services will be needed.
The school’s closure has elicited varied reactions among residents.
Charles Ongori, a resident, said that the board hurried to close it before holding public meetings to mobilize parents to enroll their children there.
“This is our institution that we constructed using our resources and we should have been consulted before any step was taken,” he said.
Another resident, Esther Nyanchoka, appealed to the Ministry of Education to surrender the buildings to the county government for conversion into a village polytechnic.
“We have many school leavers who can join the polytechnic and benefit instead of leaving the building to wear out,” she argued.
Karungu Secondary school is the second one to be closed in the area after St. Charles Makara was closed five years ago for failure to meet the required standards of operation.
