Most schools lack title deeds for their land, report shows

By RENSON MNYAMWEZI

TAITA TAVETA, KENYA:  Nearly all public primary schools in Taita Taveta County have no land ownership documents, an education task force report has disclosed.

The task force appointed by the Governor John Mruttu to look into the declining standards of education in primary schools revealed that only 42 out of the 222 primary schools in the region have title deeds.

“Only 19 per cent of the schools have title deeds while the rest do not have registration documents and are not able to lay claim to land,” says the report of the task force chaired by former Kenya National Union of Teachers branch Executive Secretary James Mwasambo.

Briefing the stakeholders on the registration status of primary schools last week, the task force members said majority of the institutions are either situated in private, Government or trust land. Mr Mwasambo said a total of 180 primary schools urgently require registration.

The report said in this scenario, security of such institutions’ land is not guaranteed.

“The registration of a school requires that an institution prove ownership of land allocated to it. Failure to process these documents by the school management committee has contributed a great deal to lack of registration of the affected schools in the county,” read the report.

During the meeting, head teachers and school management committees accused sponsors of failure to register the schools.

Poor performance

“We do not understand why these sponsors are reluctant to have schools located in their farms registered,” complained a head teacher in Mwatate district.

At the same time, the report revealed that a lack of laboratories and low investment in modern apparatus is a leading cause for poor performance in science subjects in national secondary school examinations.

It shows that only 54 of the 75 secondary schools in the area have science laboratories.

The worst performed subject is mathematics with a mean score of 1.06, said the report.

The report also showed that 65 per cent of the schools sitting KCSE examination science practicals have no laboratories.