Dagoretti North MP Beatrice Elachi has called on the National Government to issue land titles belonging to public schools in Nairobi.

 Speaking yesterday, Elachi said most of the public schools in Nairobi have been grabbed by people who claim to have the legal documents for the ownership.

In particular, the former Nairobi County Assembly Speaker raised concerns over a piece of land belonging to Lavington Secondary School which she alleged has been grabbed.

 An unknown developer has already erected a construction site there.

“We have a problem in this city. Our schools don’t have their title deeds. My appeal to this new administration is to move quick and ensure they have allocated them with the documents. So, the best thing is government to give schools of Nairobi their tittle deeds so that they can be able to even know their boundaries. For instance, this is the only girl’s school that I have now that can accommodate children from Kawangware because most of the schools I have in my constituency are national schools,” Elachi said.

Cases of public school land grabbing is common in Nairobi County with some cases like Langata Primary being one of the most documented.

A recent survey by Kenya Land Alliance indicated that 70 percent of public schools land risk being grabbed.  As of November 2019, 70 percent of the 32,354 public schools operating in Kenya did not have title deeds. According to a report dubbed ‘A Handbook for Public Schools Land Defenders, Shule Yangu Alliance Campaign 2020, further showed that more than 4,100 public schools have formally reported being at risk of being grabbed due to lack of ownership documents.