- Despite the pathetic conditions, education and health officials rarely make impromptu inspections.
- And when they do, their palms are greased to turn a blind eye.
Mukumu Girls' High School in Kakamega county has been in the news this month not for anything positive, but for some quite depressing happenings.
An infection, which medics have identified as a mixture of E. coli and Salmonella typhi, has so far claimed the lives of three students and a teacher. More than 200 others have been treated at various hospitals.
What is surprising is that no one pointed out the pathetic boarding and sanitary conditions at the school, which only came to the fore after the deaths.
What is the role of the Ministry of Education's inspectorate department or the Health ministry's public health officials?
The situation in Mukumu is replicated in many other public boarding schools across the country. Several school deaths arising from poor sanitary conditions or contaminated food have been reported before.
Students in many of these schools are packed like sardines in dorms, have no access to clean drinking water, toilets and washrooms are in deplorable conditions and the kitchens are worse than a pigsty.
The kitchen staff are rarely subjected to annual food handling health tests.
Despite the pathetic conditions, education and health officials rarely make impromptu inspections. And when they do, their palms are greased to turn a blind eye.
Students in most public boarding schools just survive by the grace of God.
Officials charged with school inspection must do their work to forestall unnecessary deaths.
Quote of the Day: "What more valuable than Gold? Diamonds. Than Diamonds? Virtue.”
Benjamin Franklin
The US Founding Father, inventor, ambassador and writer died on April 17, 1790