The Cabinet Secretary of Education Professor George Magoha has maintained that students are safe in schools. This comes after seven pupils lost their lives in Precious Talents School when their classrooms collapsed.
The pupils were preparing for their first lesson when the incident happened.
The Monday morning incident saw 64 pupils injured with two in critical condition at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH).
About 600 pupils underwent a safety check at St Marys Catholic in the area.
According to Prof Magoha, the classrooms of the school are in stable condition to hold pupils for learning.
The storey building that held students was built on a temporary structure. The building further, according to experts, did not follow the standard construction procedure rendering it vulnerable to collapse.
School Closed
“We have asked learners to stay at home over the next few days as we put in place adequate measures to ensure their safety of learning. I want to say firmly that the children of Kenya are safe in schools,” said Prof Magoha.
“This single tragic accident must not be used by anyone to instill fear in our children in both public and private primary and secondary schools,” he added.
Precious Talent School has therefore been closed for four days to pave way for investigations on the tragic incident.
“We have set a multi-agency group comprising of officials from county government, ministry of education and interior and coordination of the national government, local leaders, ministry of health and the Kenya red cross to handle this situation and conduct thorough investigations on possible causes of this tragedy and submit the report of immediate action,” said Magoha.
Prof Magoha has further told the parents of Dagoretti South that his ministry will acquire land and construct a public school within reach.
The nearest public school in the area is approximately two kilometers from Precious Talent School.
Precious Talent School
Precious Talent school is duly registered by the Ministry of education. It has a population of 800 pupils.
The school manager Moses Ndirangu said the high population of the school has been attributed to the good performance of the school in National exams.
He further blamed the Nairobi County Council for the tragedy saying the latest sewer line construction behind the building rendered it weak.
Kenya has at least 30,000 registered primary schools.
