Chebini parents lock school head in office, accuse teachers for poor performance

Written by Rosemary Wachiye 2012-01-05 16:58:00 Read 279 Times

As parents across the country continue to react sharply to poor performance by schools, Chebini Primary school parents in Webuye Thursday morning matched to the school and locked the head teacher in his office over poor performance. The parents of the poorly structured school in in Miendo area, Bungoma East District, accused the school head Mr. Vincent Kituyi and his teachers of being the main cause to the poor performance by last year’s KCPE candidates. The school managed a mean score of 182 marks with the first pupil scoring 312 out of the possible 500 causing outcry from the parents who also want Kituyi to be transferred. They blamed him for having poor managerial skills and lack of proper working mechanisms that has failed the school. At the same time, they blamed the teachers for being lazy and non-committed to their work and called for their immediate transfer. There was tension and confusion at the school as it started its first day of the year until officials of the Kenya National Union for Teachers (KNUT) Bungoma East branch came in time to salvage the situation that was almost going out of hand. The officials led by the Secretary General Mr.  Aggrey Namisi (pictured below) calmed down the situation through dialogue with both sides. They gave a chance to the parents to express their views and after which the teachers responded and they finally arrived at an amicable solution. “As KNUT we would like the parents to understand that as much as the role of teachers is to teach and the parents also have a role to play in ensuring better performance of their children,” said Mr. Namisi. Namisi expressed his concern over some of the parents’ of sitting back throughout the academic year to wait for the results to be announced for them to come forth and complain blaming the teachers who have played their role. “Most parents never cooperate in issues for development in the schools when called upon, they never attend harambees, or annual meetings which have important agenda towards improving performance yet they are the first ones to complain whenever an issue arises,” he charged.. However, he challenged the teachers together with the parents to discuss and find out where the problem could be and come up with a way forward to better the academic performance and discipline in the school so that come the end of the year when the results come out, there would be no blames.