On Monday last week, the country woke up to the tragic news that a wall of a classroom at Precious Talents School had collapsed, killing at least eight pupils and injuring more than 60. This devastating event has underlining wrongs that should set off a dramatic shift in Kenyan consciousness and conscience.
First, reports indicate that the collapsed building housed classes Two, Three, Four and Eight and the wall came crumbling down at around 6.50am.
This means the pupils woke up between 5-6am to prepare and make their way to school, probably reporting at around 6.30am to be seated at 6:50am?
So, education policymakers, why are pupils as young as those in classes Two, Three, Four reporting to school that early?
There is a terrible fixation in this country that waking up early is an indication of being productive.
In the earlier African society, since there were no modern farming techniques, farmers had to wake up as early as possible to till their land before the earth crust becomes hard from daylight heat.
We have carried that peasant society mindset that waking up early is a sign of productivity when it is not. If adults are reporting to work at 8am, why should kids report to school at 6.30am?
Second, the rise of informal schools that lack basic requirements. Here, I wish to dwell on the economic problem that led to the tragic death of innocent children who were at the wrong place simply seeking education opportunity they are denied to lack of a public primary school, and why a similar tragedy is bound to replicate in other places.
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Ngando Ward where the school is located is said to have no public primary school, all the land available is in private hands.
This is not the case for Ngando Ward only, Pipeline ward is also said not to have a single public primary school.
With Nairobi’s population growing fast, the county has only 225 public primary schools that provide Free Primary Education.
This should obliterate our conscience because we are a generation leaving nothing behind for the next generation to hold on to when around 40 percent of Kenya’s population is 14 years and below.
Nairobi has big structural problem, which is exaggerated land prices.
This is because Nairobi’s habitation is centralised, making demand for land within the area skyrocket.
This can be seen in banking sector where lenders have accumulated toxic assets in real estate.
Banks have been financing developers in acquisition of an overpriced land then also finance the construction of the property.
When pricing the sale of units, they are overpriced that there is no uptake. On the other hand, when banks decide to foreclose the property, there is also no buyer, locking lenders with a portfolio of non-performing loans in real estate and construction.
Due to Nairobi’s exaggerated land prices, it made public land available for public amenities lucrative, leading to many being grabbed and deposed to private hands.
So, in many places there is no available land for public schools.
For the private schools that can afford buying land to put a school, the cost is quite expensive for the average Nairobian to enroll their kids.
This leaves room for private informal schools built within small space and lack basic requirements because there is demand for education but no schools available.
This is how Precious Talents came up within the densely populated Ngando and had more than 800 pupils enrolled in overcrowded classrooms.
So, the least government can do in addressing access to education is reclaiming all grabbed public land meant for public schools.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
