Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) George Magoha has dismissed the closing of a school in Nyandarua County over Covid-19 as a non-issue.
Speaking in Thika a day after Uhuru Primary School in Nyandarua County was temporarily shut down following positive cases of Covid-19, Magoha said that infection of about ten learners should not affect the learning of 14 million.
About 70 pupils from the institution are reported to have visited Nyairoko Dispensary complaining of diarrhoea and sore throats and after a thorough examination, about 16 of them were found to be Covid-19 positive, a situation which inspired the uncertain closure of the school.
But Magoha has insisted that the state is doing everything possible to ensure that all students are safe.
He reemphasised that infection of about 10 pupils should not affect the learning of 14 million learners adding that learning will continue.
“This is not an issue at all. You remember the noise that you people were making before. If the president was not bold enough to open schools, would these children be lining up here to get scholarships to go to high schools,” he informed journalists after observing ongoing interviews for the World Bank-funded Elimu Program that is issuing 9,000 scholarships to vulnerable learners in Kenya.
On form one selection Magoha insisted that CS insisted that all schools in the country are good for any learner. This is after reports emerged that hundreds of students missed out on their dream schools.
“This craze of top ten schools must have stopped yesterday. It is not functional, stop making noise and encourage your children,” he told parents.
He criticised parents who have been misguiding their children on the performance of some schools stating that it is not the school that will make a learner perform but the zeal and the zest that is with the child.
The Education CS urged stakeholders to allow the Ministry of Education to correct any mistakes in the selection process rather than making noise all over.
“If there was a mistake, for example, if a male child was called to a female school, don’t make too much noise, let us just correct it and move on. If there was a mistake perhaps if a child was called to a far-flung school, let us also correct it and move on. We must now start thinking positively,” he said.
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