PS Bitok demands arrest of Alliance Girls teacher over student abuse allegations

Basic Education PS Julius Bitok before the National Assembly Public Accounts Committee. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Bitok has called on police and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to immediately arrest and prosecute a teacher at Alliance Girls High School accused of grooming and engaging in sexual relationships with students.

Speaking during an event in Nandi County,Bitok said the Ministry of Education has already engaged the TSC and police to ensure the accused instructor is interdicted and faces criminal charges.

“That teacher is going to be punished. We have talked to TSC and all the other stakeholders to ensure that he is arrested,” he declared.

At the same time, the PS underscored the government’s zero-tolerance policy on sexual misconduct in schools, stressing that safeguarding learners is paramount.

“We are not going to condone any behaviour where teachers or any other stakeholder in schools take advantage of our children, as government, we are saying such behaviour will not be tolerated,' Bitok stated.

He warned that similar incidents in any other institution would attract swift and decisive action.

“It is not only in Alliance. Even in any other school in the country, that behaviour must stop forthwith,” he added.

The PS’s comments come in the wake of an Africa Uncensored exposé that accuses the veteran teacher and Christian Union patron of grooming pupils, arranging dinners and invoking spiritual authority as early as 2018.