CS Magoha to Involve EACC And DPP in All School Investigations

Education CS Magoha has asked that his ministry’s Directorate of School Audits and the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission (EACC) work together to bring to book any offenses and malpractices done by school principals.

In a bid to ensure that cash allocated to schools is used well, Magoha proposes that the EACC and DPP be involved in school investigations.

If the Directory of School Audits and the EACC find faults with how school funds were used, the institution’s leadership will be investigated by the office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), where the DPP will decide whether or not to open criminal charges against them.

In a 51-page National Education Quality Assurance and Standards Framework for Basic Education Institutions proposal, Prof. Magoha seeks to have his ministry conduct quality assurance on schools every three years.

CS Magoha had earlier ordered an audit to be done for all the 28000 public schools on how they had spent the cash from the fees paid by parents and the money they receive from the government.

From the audits, the CS concluded that as much as school heads were complaining about insufficient funding, they were actually to blame for the irresponsible expenditure of school funds.

He highlighted a case where a school spent a whopping 3 million shillings to construct only one classroom.

Delocalization of school heads by TSC in 2018 also brought to light the many cases of misappropriation of funds that may have been committed by school heads.

In the past, most of the school heads found to have been guilty of this offense have either been suspended, interdicted or sacked but have never been charged in the court of law.

Some of the schools that were found to have misused school funds and prompted the TSC to begin investigations of schools were Kapsabet Girls’, St. Mary’s Egoji Girls’ and Nyamira Girls’ schools.

Since then, it emerged that Pangani Girls board members spent two million shillings on a generator that was faulty and the EACC is yet to open investigations.

Alliance High School spent 7.3 million shillings on paying to consultancy firms for the construction of a hostel, wall, and gate while teachers of Mang’u, Jamhuri boys, Dagoretti High, Alliance High, and Kenya High Schools have 4.3 million shillings rent arrears.

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