SEPU partners with CDF to deliver desks to school

Joel Mabonga the CEO of the School Equipment Production Unit (SEPU) addresses students of Karai Secondary School in Kikuyu constituency after he brought over 100 lockers to the institution. [George Njunge, Standard]

A government agency in conjunction with the Kikuyu constituency has donated lockers to Karai Secondary School worth Sh500,000.

The School Equipment and Production Unit (SEPU) partnered with the constituency to deliver the desks to the school whose students sat on benches during lessons.

SEPU chief executive Dr Joel Mabonga, who presented the lockers to the school, said that the agency is a government parastatal mandated with designing, producing and delivering school equipment ranging from lockers, science materials, and chemical re-agents among others.

Dr Mabonga said that SEPU had partnered with Kikuyu CDF to provide 500 modern lockers to secondary schools in the area.

"We are under basic education in the Ministry of Education and we have everything academic. We even have interventions for Junior secondary school including a mobile laboratory for integrated science. We have looked at the JSS curriculum and we have come up with provisions for the same," Mabonga said.

Mabonga observed good and proper equipment and teaching aids go a long way in helping students to score good marks during exams adding that it is part of an academic enabling environment.

He called upon other CDFs in the country to partner with them to have learners across the country get quality learning materials.

"Other CDFs should borrow a leaf from Kikuyu and see this great symbiotic relationship between SEPU and Kikuyu, we are keen on quality being a government parastatal working for the same government ministry," Mabonga said.

Simon Ngugi, Kikuyu CDF chairman the students from Karai high school had a modern dining hall and good classes but had a deficit of lockers.

"It is not proper for learners to move with loads of books to and from school daily because of the lack of lockers in this institution. The books are tiresome to carry home and especially at this time when it is rainy," Ngugi said.

Ngugi further said that the government has been buying textbooks and other academic requirements and noted that the items should be protected from damage.

"You can imagine when rains pound this place and the students are carrying loads of books, they will be destroyed. These lockers now come in handy and we are keen to phase out the old sitting arrangement where students and pupils use benches," Mbugua said

He said that Kikuyu CDF puts aside Sh6 million in every year to buy lockers for schools around the constituency in both primary and secondary at a cost of Sh6,000 per piece.