Kenyans blame govt after school collapse kills 7 students

Kenyans reacted angrily over the deadly collapse of a school on Tuesday, accusing government officials of negligence and putting the lives of schoolchildren at risk.

At least children were killed when a two-story building that housed Precious Talent School caved in and collapsed early Monday morning in the city of Nairobi. Residents and parents have said that they had raised concerns over the safety of the shoddy structure, made of wood, wire mesh and iron sheets, but their complaints had fallen on deaf ears.

More than 600 children were treated in local hospital for superficial injuries and 64 referred to the national hospital for serious injuries. Most of them have been discharged while four remain in the hospital.

The government has launched an investigation over the incident to determine the cause and the party responsible for the tragedy.

The private school located in the western part of the city is in a slum area and such structures are not unusual. The structure hosted four classrooms on the upper floor and another four on the ground.

The National Buildings Inspectorate has called the school building architecture "a structural failure and a work of quackery", and added that similar buildings are mushrooming in many areas in the city.

According to the residents, there had been recent activities of digging a sewerage system quite close to the structure, thus weakening the foundation. However, others added that the structure was already weak from the start.
Meshack Nyabuto, whose 7-year-old child survived the tragedy, said there were many similar private schools in the area since the only government-sponsored school was very far.

He said students, mostly aged below 14 years, report to school as early as 6:30 am. The first floor of the building collapsed and trapped most of the children below, said Nyabuto, who was also among the first responders.
The governor of Nairobi has blamed the deadly incident on rogue officials for issuing permits illegally.

Governor Mike Mbuvi Sonko said there was a ring of crooked officials at the county Planning Department who would collude with developers to develop building illegally.

He said an investigation into the department's activities had uncovered illegal activities where the officials would devise ways of overriding the digital system so as to issue building approvals. Sonko said the investigations have led to the suspension of the chief officer for planning.

However, he noted that the inspection and approval of primary and secondary schools fell under the Ministry of Education. The ministry of education has confirmed that the school was registered officially.

The government has however placed the blame squarely on the teachers and owner of the school saying it was over crowded and the structure was weak. The early reporting time of the pupils also came into question as the ministry recommends school opening hours for all public and private schools as 8:00 am to 3:30 pm. This applies to both primary and secondary schools.

The government however will be at pains to explain how the school was registered despite lacking a playing ground, which is a mandatory requirement for all learning institutions in the country.

For now, the school has been closed down for four days as adequate measures are put in place.

Three years ago, a government agency warned that more than half of the buildings being put up across the country were not safe for occupation. Furthermore, such use of substandard materials and failure to engage professionals in the supervision as major contributory factors.

Kenyans took to social media pointing to the early reporting time and poor workmanship of schools in the country. They wanted stern action taken against the contractors.

There were also calls for audit of all public buildings in the country.