By Maore Ithula
Having been around for a century and a decade, Reverend Musa Gitau Primary School is facing a litany of set backs.
The most glaring stumbling block, Geoffrey Mungai, the head teacher says, is the national nature of its pupil population.
He says: "Since the start the school has admitted pupils from across the country giving it a national outlook."
Because most parents are not locals, the school is "politically incorrect" as far as Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is concerned, he laments.
Mungai who has been in charge of the school since 2000, says unlike other local public schools , Musa Gitau has never benefited from the devolved fund.
Says he: "Our status is our undoing. We have sent many proposals for allocation of the devolved fund to no avail. Although no official communication has been forthcoming that we cannot be allocated money because of our national nature, I have done my homework and discovered that other similar schools are also suffering from the same problem."
Enviable
There are four institutions of this kind. They include, The Nyeri Complex Academy, Naivasha Boarding Primary School, and the Hill Top Academy in Eldoret.
To resolve this problem and preserve the enviable status of these institutions, Mungai suggests that the Ministry of Education recognises the national nature of the schools and locate them extra money to maintain the performance in national exams.
Other challenges facing the school include competition for places at the school. "Because of the good results that we post in KCPE almost everybody wants his or her child in this school. The challenge is to take all pupils who qualify," rues Mungai.
In last year’s KCPE, 18 of 1975 pupils who wrote the national examination scored 400 and above. With a mean score of 338 marks, 17 of candidates secured slots in national schools.
The teacher says the school needs infrastructural expansion to cater for the larger population of its pupils.
For instance, the only borehole that serves the school was sunk in 1928 to serve about 200 but the school today has more than 1,500 students.
Mungai also regrets that the ministry allocates the same number teachers to public boarding schools as those placed in day primary schools.
He says it is unfair because those in boarding schools work more hours than their counterparts in day schools yet they are paid the same salary.
