Parents withdraw children from Gatundu school, hold protests over poor performance

Normal school activities have been paralysed at St Annes Mariaini Primary School in Gatundu North, Kiambu County, after parents withdrew their children to protest dismal performance, school mismanagement and alleged embezzlement of funds by the headteacher.

A day after pulling out all learners from the institution, the irked parents marched to the school demanding the urgent transfer of the headteacher.

They further demanded that the entire school management board be overhauled before they return their children to the institution.

At the centre of their fury is the alleged mistreatment of parents by the school boss, her highhandedness, hiked school and lunch program fees, mismanagement of the institution and reported misappropriation of funds raised by parents for development of the school.

Armed with vuvuzelas, thorns, twigs and placards with anti-headteacher phrases, the parents further protested the dismal performance of the once giant school that emerged in position 70 out of 73 primary schools within Gatundu North sub-county.

In their statements, the parents pointed fingers at the school headteacher identified as Catherine Wangui Wairegi for making the institution ungovernable due to her dictatorial leadership and inability to embrace school development ideas from parents.

Led by Fred Gichuki, Tabitha Gitau and Emmanuel Ndiwa, the parents claimed that Wangui has been running the school’s income-generating activities such as a tree farm alone whose returns have never been accounted for.

They at the same time accused her of embezzling proceeds of trees sold from the school land amounting to the tune of Ksh800,000 which was meant to develop the school but there is nothing to show for it.

“We are tired of doing the same thing and expecting different results. This headteacher has destroyed this school in totality to a point all of us wanted to transfer our children. We later decided to pursue transfer of the problem behind our children’s poor performance. The school headteacher and her entire management board must leave this institution and forever forget about it. There is nothing to negotiate about this because we believe she is behind all our problems,” Gichuki stated.

A school feeding program started at the institution to improve the pupils’ concentration in class is also said to have been turned into a scandalous business as the parents not only pay a lot of money to run it but their children reportedly also eat poorly cooked food that has seen most of them suffer stomach problems.

“We now want our children to resume the era of carrying lunch boxes. We cannot pay for them to eat well in school only for them to take home stomach ailments. Even when the headteacher is transferred, we will not revive the program until we are assured that our children will be eating quality food and at a cost that parents will determine,” Tabitha Gitau, another parent, lamented.

Having camped at the institution for almost the entire day, the parents were later addressed by Gatundu North Sub-county Director of Education Edith Kariuki who promised to address the issues they raised.

Among the temporal solutions offered is an instant stoppage of any school fee payment until all the matters raised are addressed, suspension of Wangui from the school until further notice and promised investigations into the school resources misappropriation claims.

“As of now, the headteacher will not report to the school until we solve the issues you have raised. If we decide to have the teacher back, we will convene a meeting with you so that you can agree with or oppose the decision. We cannot hold the school at ransom and so, your children will resume learning but a team will start investigations into the issues you have mentioned from tomorrow. For now, you will not pay anything to the school until further notice,” Kariuki told the parents.

Efforts to reach the accused headteacher were futile as she did not respond to our calls or text messages.