FALLEN GIANT: HERE PASSED IEBC BOSS MR ISSACK HASSAN

BY ADOW JUBAT

Master Sudhow Osman Abdi , 13, standard seven a pupil in Bura primary school in Fafi constituency, Garissa County seats on a rackety desk, made of old timber woods. Her desk is ridden with cracks from nail holes due to repeated ‘visits’ to the local workshop for many repairs.

As her English teacher, explains an English vocabulary word; she is torn between holding her slanting desk on her feeble right leg, listening to her teacher and pulling together her tattered skirt from the blowing strong winds entering from the wide cracks on the walls, to hide her nakedness to the amusement of her classmate.

When the teacher, asks her the meaning of word he just explained to the class, the youngest blankly stares back at her teacher a clear, indication that she missed the teacher’s explanation of the word.

Angered, by her failure to grasp the lesson adequately, despite the teacher losing his voice over lecturing for the thirty five minutes, the teacher charged, at the scared girl ready with his cane to instill some discipline of been attentive in his lesson.

Before reaching the now fidgeting girl, a she-goat roaming with its kids in the open school compound, stands behind the class and took a look at the students, from a gulping a crack on the back wall and bleats hysterically-Meeeeee Meeee- sparking an infectious laughter among the pupils and their teacher and on the process saving, the girl from the rage of her teacher.

Distractions from straying both wild and domesticate animals, rackety desk, absence of a conducive physical infrastructures, adequate teaching staffs and crumpling classroom walls dangerously hanging above the heads of children are common phenomenal eyesores in many learning institutions in the tail-end North-eastern region provoking an intense debate over the priority of Jubilee government primary schools laptops projects.

In its first National 1.6 trillion budget, the Uhuru’s government allocates the laptop, a key pledge in his Jubilee government manifestos 53 Billion to fulfill one laptop for every child enrolling in class one. This budgetary allocation has already caused uproar among the education stakeholders with Kenya National Union of Teachers’ (KNUT) threatening to go on strike over government misplaced priority.

When the Standard, visited Bura primary school recently on a fact finding mission, it was shocked what it found out- a debilitated classroom, dormitories for the boarders and teachers’ staffrooms. The facilities despite in use, it was condemned by the government’s relevant authorities as inhabitable for human use on 17^th, August 2012.

The school, which is the only primary with a boarding wing for both girls and boys in the entire Fafi district, was constructed in 1976 on the generosity of the World Bank.

Ministry in charge of validation of building in the country gave a damning report which described the learning institution condition as another national disaster in waiting.

In the report which was copied to the Ministry of Education and other stakeholders recommended for the immediate demolish of entire school’s eight classes and Administration bloc which was highly beyond repairing according to the report.

The walls are ridden with widely opened cracks; roofs are precariously hanging on the heads of the children, windows inexistent and floor many years gone. In nutshell, the school is a powder keg waiting to explode one day to add into the static of the country’s unchecked disasters.

The mix- boys and girls school is fallen giant, been the first schools in the Northern region and having produced the best minds from the region. Among the notable academicians who passed through the now neglected school is the chairman of the IEBC Ahmed Issack Hassan, the immediate Member of Parliament for Fafi Adan Sugow, Abdifatah Diis Shaffat a lecturer at university in Ohio in USA and a former NEP PDE Abdullahi Abdi.

But due to the deteriorating leaning infrastructures and the hazardous environment, the school is a hallow shell of its former past and has been performing  dismally for the last five years prompting most of the able parents to withdraw their children and take them to other schools in Garissa.

Mustapha Khalib, 30, a resident of Bura town and ODM youth activist in Fafi district, wonders what will be the use of a laptop in schools such as Bura Boarding primary school, where pupils are unable to perform splendidly for the last five years in row due to absence of a decent classrooms and adequate teachers.

Khalib who has two siblings in the school asserts “The Jubilee laptop project to primary schools particularly those in North-Eastern region is just like a physician prescribe a birth control pills to a woman, who visited his chemist for a solution to her infertility problems”.

He says parents in the area who has their children at the institution are always worried over their safety because of the condition of the classes, which are very prone to collapsing with slightest impacts of strong winds.

“This school is a beckoning disaster. We have expressed our concerns as residents to the relavant Ministry of public work and Public health and Sanitation in 2012 and the both Ministries have condemned the school after their respective assessments as an inhabitable institution, but to our dismay children are still in the same classes since they don’t have an optional learning facilities” he added sipping a bottled water as he chews Miraa in Fafi Palace hotel with colleagues.

He continues “We suspect some of our former leaders and Ministry of education officials in the district and at the County knows what we the local people are no aware. May be funds meant for repair or constructions of new class might have been swindled by some people. None is showing any concern for our children”

The fears of the ODM youth activist that there much to the ongoing at the school was evident, when this writer tried to inquire some Education officials on the deteriorating plight of the over thirty seven years old school.

Many downplayed the dangers posed to the children with continued use of the condemned classrooms and dormitories, while others kept on ignoring calls and SMS in bid to keep to themselves the crumbling nature of the school and suffering of over nine hundred and seventy pupils going to the school.

Interestingly, some projects constructed not long ago under LATIF funds are also condemned before their completion and falling apart from poor workmanship. Some dormitories are been converted to classrooms at daytime and dormitories at night.

Mr. Hanutho Sheikh, 43, who has several of her children and grand children at the school scratched her head over her headscarf in display of confusion, when asked about her take on schools’ laptop project which get 3 Billion out of the 53 Billion in its first phase at the expense of her children collapsing classes.

Upon more explanations to her on the project and even showing a laptop as sample of the equipments be discussed she asks her standard six child who was holding the hems of her flowing clothes “is this not the gadget, I saw been carried by the Kenya Red cross officials who visited us during the last month flash floods in our area”

Rising her voice she says “if Uhuru and his government want to address our urgent needs let them provide new classrooms and dormitories to our children, who are unable to concentrate their learning because of the falling classes and their hostels. It’s unnecessary to talking about this gadget when our children lack the basic learning infrastructural facilities”.

Mrs. Sheikh says that she was concerned over the safety of the laptops and their subsequent burden to the parents in case of damage by the gadgets by their children.

“Only last term, I was forced to sell my only two goats to refund text books allegedly lost by my children by their teachers. What will happen, if we are asked to pay thousands of shillings for laptops damaged or misplaced by our children? Where will we get the money” She equipped.

She fears the laptop project may be turned into cash cow by the unscrupulous teachers and schools managers noting that, despite people talking of free primary school in the country, she never stopped buying exercise books and pens for her children.

A teacher at the school, who understandably declined to be named for fear of victimization by his bosses, says that he agrees with old woman that laptop, is nowhere near to their school’s priority at moment considering the precarious situation of the classes, dormitories and staffrooms.

The Fafi DEO Daniel .O. Ayeta who conceded having received the report condemning the biggest primary school in the district  for closure said his office has shared the report with the all relevant stakeholders among them the Ministry of Education, local CDF office, UNICEF and other well-wishers for an urgent innervations. He said “Our entire classes were rendered inhabitable by the public assessment report conducted August last and as Ministry we have abide by the recommendations, however that doesn’t mean learning will be disrupted” he said on phone. He added “As we I wait for quick response from the relevant stakeholders whom we share with the report from the public works, the school committee will soon meet to explore away forward on how the children learning can go on undisrupted” The DEO gave the options to be explored as using the boarding wing which was not affected, learning in shifts by the children and taking lessons under the shades of the unavailable trees. The former Bura Ward councilor Abdullahi Yussuf in a previous interview demand for the investigation of the officials of the concerned school over the use school’s infrastructural development funds adding that there was no single project ever done for the school for the last 36 years of its existence. The KNUT NEC representative for NEP Ali Abdi Hussein says the school laptop is lopsided project, which is likely to fail in the face of the Jubilee government, which is just concerned of implementing their campaign manifesto despite been misplaced priority for many Kenya schools. “In NEP we have schools with classes from one to 8, which are run by paltry two teachers. What should be the priority for such school a laptop or employment of more teachers? And with over eighty percent of our teachers been computer illiterate, who will teach and maintain the laptop” he asked while speaking to The Standard in Mandera town. He continues “ What is important to our schools as the teachers fraternity and the parents, is allocating enough money to address the over 12,000 teachers shortfall and improve the physical infrastructures of our school and not laptops” The KNUT officials’ advice the government to avert the looming National teachers’ strike, by fully implementing the teachers allowance as agreed with the teachers in 1997 to motive them to improve teaching than playing politics to the gallery.