•Rift Valley regional commissioner Maalim Mohammed says all county commissioners, education officials and officers from the DCI department will meet in Nakuru.
•Extra security will be deployed to all schools in the region ahead of exams.
The government has called a crisis security meeting to ensure safety in Kerio Valley and other Rift schools during the KCSE and KCPE exams next month.
Even as government planned to protect schools, bandits fatally shot a teacher and three other people in Kerio Valley on Sunday evening.
The teacher, a catechist, had been at Kipyebo Catholic Church all day. He was on his way home when he was ambushed and sprayed with bullets. He worked at Kipyebo Primary School.
The three others were pastoralists.
The attack came just two days after 13 students and two teachers were injured in a school bus attack in the same area on Friday night.
Rift Valley regional commissioner Maalim Mohammed said all county commissioners, education officials and officers from the DCI department will meet in Nakuru on Thursday to plan for the exams in the region plagued by banditry.
Mohammed said the government will also involve leaders from the region and residents to ensure the exams go smoothly.
Extra security will be deployed to all schools ahead of the exams.
Mohammed said all measures were being put in place to ensure security is restored.
“We will not make public what we are doing but the results will be seen and felt," he said. He said bandits using part of Tiaty constituency as a hideout would face severe action.
The teacher was shot less than two kilometres from where bandits last Friday attacked a convoy of school buses, killing one driver and sending 15 people to hospital.
The buses were ferrying students of Tot Secondary School from a trip when then they were ambushed as they returned to their school. It was 10.30pm but schools are banned from the roads after 6pm.
Two teachers and 12 students are still hospitalised.
“We are quite saddened by the situation and despite all the promises by CS Fred Matiang'i, nothing is happening to stop these killings," Senator Kipchumba Murkomen ssaid.
Governors led by Jackson Mandago of Uasin Gishu who is chairman of the North Rift Economic Bloc have also condemned the latest killings and urged President Kenyatta to personally intervene to restore security.
“What is happening now has gone beyond CS Matiang'i and we are now asking President Kenyatta, who is the commander in chief of the armed forces, to personally intervene in that region," Mandago said.
He said children must be enabled to go to school and for national examinations.
The government will also send counsellors to Tot Secondary in Kerio Valley where students were attacked by bandits last Friday.
Mohammed said the attack had caused panic among other students and teachers and the counsellors will help to calm them down and continue learning.
Four armed police officers have also been deployed to the school in the area hard hit by the banditry attacks. Former IG Joseph Boinnet visited the affected areas and called for peace.
Mohammed said the school principal blamed for allowing the buses to ferry students at night had not been arrested to avoid causing further panic at the school.
(Edited by V. Graham)