'If you don’t test your teachers and other staff members and you are operating a private college you should rest assured that we will not allow you to open'
Teachers colleges whose staff will not have been tested for Covid-19 will not be allowed to reopen in September.
Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said testing of staff was a mandatory condition for reopening.
Speaking on Monday at the Kenya School of Government in Embu during a colleges principals consultation meeting on reopening, Maghoha said this condition will be mandatory for all public and private colleges.
He said the colleges’ administrations expressed readiness to reopen in September by ensuring they carry out all the required health conditions including social distancing of 1.5 meters both in classes and hostels, wearing masks and providing sanitiser, soap and running water.
“If you don’t test your teachers and other staff members and you are operating a private college you should rest assured that we will not allow you to open,” Magoha said.
He said cooks in the colleges will have to be tested every 14 days to ensure that they don’t pass the virus to the students as they handle food.
The CS said the reopening of the colleges might be done in phases, with ten public and ten private colleges reopened first.
After an assessment of their operations, more will be reopened.
Magoha said the President will announce reopening after getting advice from the teams that are charged with the responsibility of finding how prepared the institutions are.
Expressing regret on the fact that more infections were being reported daily, Maghoha said teachers will have to be very careful on the way they handle themselves in preventing the virus, since learners copy them whether they are doing things right or not.
The CS at the same time warned school land grabbers that the government will not spare any of them, no matter who they are as the land will have to be used for the purpose for which it was set aside.
Magoha said grabbed school land will be repossessed by the government.
Edited by Henry Makori