Kakamega governor Fernandes Barasa has condemned last Thursday’s forceful ejection of a secondary school principal over poor 2023 KCSE results.
Barasa termed the incident at St Gabriel's Isongo secondary school as barbaric, saying education was a joint undertaking by all players and no single individual could be blamed for poor results.
“Matters examination results begin with the parent.
"There must be cordial relationship between parents, teachers, school Board of Management and the political leadership to be able to deliver better results,” he said.
There is no way to get good results if parents have abdicated their role in the education of their children to teachers alone,” he said.
The Governor was speaking during a church service at Believers Rival Mission Church in Butsotso East Ward, Lurambi constituency.
Parents teamed up with boda boda operators to forcefully eject the principal of St. Gabriel’s Isongo secondary school David Wafula on Thursday last week, accusing him of posting poor results since he took overthrow school.
The school registered 179 candidates but only managed to produce two university entry grades, as the majority scored D- and four Es.
The parents accused the principal of taking charge of the school when the mean score was at 5.2.
They said the mean score reduced to 4.3 and finally 2.89 last year since the principal took over the school.
In the video that has been doing rounds on the internet, David Wafula was seen being escorted out of the premises as residents carried leaves and banners.
“This school keeps changing teachers, we have those who come for three months, they don’t teach then they are transferred. After every around four months students have to adapt to new teachers,” an angry parent said.
“My husband who works in this school has not been paid for months and the school principal is not ready to answer to that. I am afraid this is not taking a good direction and we need to change the management,” another parent said.
Area MCA Peter Walunya who was present at the incident noted that leaders are focused on ensuring education standards in the school are improved.
“We seek to empower our parents and students through available bursaries including the CDF and County Government scholarships. We call for concerted efforts to improve the standards in this school,” Walunya said.
