Team wants some city schools merged
Nairobi County should merge some of its primary schools and convert them into village polytechnics.
This was the proposal made by a taskforce on education set up to come up with suggestions on how to address education challenges in the county.
A draft report by the taskforce says that while some schools especially in the slums were overpopulated and understaffed, others in the county had virtually empty classrooms.
St Bridget’s school had only 72 students while Muslim Primary school had 90 students being served by 28 classrooms.
St Georges was also found to be visibly underpopulated notwithstanding the 3,000 student capacity it has.
The report identified land grabbing as the biggest threat to city schools. The vice is orchestrated with the knowledge of officials at City Hall.
The taskforce chairman, Mr Mark Matunga said that it would cost the county dearly to renovate such schools yet they could be put to better use if they served as village polytechnics to cater for the county’s youth.
“The cost of repair for some of these schools range from Sh30 million to Sh70 million, the same amount needed for setting up new institutions which is more pragmatic in the sense that they would be of more use to the county,” he said.
Currently, Nairobi has only three village polytechnics – one in Dagoretti and two in Kayole.
The county has no technical and vocational training institution of its own after Nairobi Polytechnic was converted into a university college.
The taskforce also recommended the setting up of village polytechnics in all sub-counties.