Only 30 per cent of public schools in the country are safe from landgrabbers, a report has revealed.
The Ministry of Education has now revealed plans to secure title deeds for public schools by 2026.
"Despite the efforts put to issue schools with title deeds, a large number of them don't have title deeds," the plan reads.
As of November 2019, 70 per cent 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,' it's the government's duty, school management and the community to ensure that the land on which public schools are built is safe from grabbing.
"More than 4,100 public schools have formally reported being at risk of being grabbed due to lack of ownership documents," the report reads.
This means 22,648 schools don't have title deeds, while only 9705 have titles.
In 2018 the government introduced procedures that will ease the acquisition of title deeds by schools.
This includes a waiver of fees related to school land titling, which include stamp duty, conveyancing fees, official search costs, registration, and stamp premium.
The government further conducted a land audit exercise to verify the stages at which different schools are acquiring title deeds.
