By Edwin Cheserek
Minister for Education Sam Ongeri has opposed plans by the Government to revoke title deeds for schools in forest reserves.
Prof Ongeri said about 300 schools were in forests and said demolishing them would affect learning for thousands of students.
"We should consider the interest of our children before the commencing on anything that disrupts their learning," he said.
He instead said the institutions should enter an agreement with the Government on conservation of the environment.
The minister expressed optimism that a favourable decision would be arrived at by his ministry and that of Environment on the fate of such schools. The ministries, he said, would come up with recommendations that would ensure students learn in an enabling environment.
He said the Government should let the matter be handled at the community level. "The institutions belong to the community and there is need to have them solve the problem," he said.
The minister spoke on Tuesday when he presided over a prize giving ceremony in Keiyo South District. The Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources had said that schools built in forests would be required pay Sh10,000 monthly for conservation.
Environment and Mineral resources Assistant Minister Margaret Kamar said the amount was too much for the schools.
She said the ministry had shelved the plan to find ways of ensuring there is mutual benefit for all the parties.
Ongeri also attributed poor performances in English and Kiswahili to the use of sheng.
He said assessments by the ministry showed the corruption of different languages popularly known as sheng had influenced the fall of standards in other subjects.
