Katithini Primary School may fade into oblivion unless education authorities take action to salvage the situation.
The public school was started in 2014 near Kiambere Dam in Mwingi North sub-county by squatters who had encroached on Tarda land.
The school’s operations have all along been financed by parents as the institution has not been registered with the Ministry of Education to receive funding from the government.
However, in March matters took a turn for the worse after the squatters were evicted from their homes next to the school by Tarda following court orders.
All homesteads were flattened forcing owners to relocate to other areas.
With the eviction, the pupils' enrolment dropped from 152 learners to 76 currently as parents have relocated to other areas with their children.
Quick intervention by education authorities as schools reopened in April managed to have the pupils and teachers from Katithini School hosted at Kambusu primary that is three kilometres away.
The understanding was that guests would remain at the host school for just a month.
However, as fate would have it, the parents' efforts to set up makeshift classrooms on a plot of land at Malatani village about two kilometres outside the disputed Tarda land have come to a halt after a court issued an injunction early this month.
Kyuso rpincipal magistrate Mercy Nasimiyu on June 3 ordered Katithini Primary School management to keep off the Malatani land where temporary classrooms were being put up until the main suit filed in court was heard and concluded.
The wife of the school BOM chairman Mwithui Manzi, Assaneth Kavata, and her son Marvin Manzi prompted the issuance of the order after the duo filed a suit disputing the giving out of the family land to the school by Manzi.
The erection of the new school structure has since been halted.
Speaking to journalists at Kambusu where his school is hosted, acting Katithini Primary School head teacher Mutua Muthengi said the suit came as a surprise because the school management had compensated Manzi for the Malatani land at Sh50,000.
Kambusu Primary school head teacher John Kimwele said the presence of pupils from a different school stained the facilities at the school.
He hoped that Katithini Primary School community would soon find a new site for their school.
Kitui county director of education Salesa Adano said although he was aware the displaced Katithini primary school pupils and teachers were hosted at Kambusu, he was not aware of the order by Kyuso court stopping construction at the school’s new site.
“Previously the court had ruled that the school had illegally been set up in the Tarda land there was nothing we could have done but to ensure it was moved to a new site,” he said on phone on Tuesday.
“I will find out about the court order stopping work at the new site and give you a response later.”
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
