By Brian Malasi
The school, surprisingly, is located outside Machakos town and is in the neighbourhood of Scott Christian University on the slopes of Iveti Hills.
It's predicament is seemingly the culmination of a streak of poor performance of its base- Ikokani Primary School that always finds itself at the tail of all primary schools in the region.
The school was founded in 2018 in the third term of former Machakos Town MP Dr. Victor Munyaka under the National Government Constituency Development Fund to bring secondary education closer to the village.
As at March 1 2023, only 1 student has reported to Form 1 this year to join another 20 who make up the entire school student population.
It has a Principal and his Deputy as the only TSC teachers. 1teacher is hired by the BOM and 2 others are university students on Teaching Practice.
In the 2022 KCSE, it entered 8 candidates and is ranked 51 out of the 59 secondary schools in Machakos Subcounty with a meanscore of 2.125.
Not even KCPE graduates of the sister school- Ikokani Primary School, are willing to walk over. Instead, they prefer schools further away for unexplained reasons.
Yesterday, stakeholders meeting was called under the indefatigable Senior Chief of Mumbuni Location, Mr.Mathew Mulee to discuss how to improve the enrollment.
The School Board of Management Chairman Titus Mutuku and Community Leaders attended the meeting including the Chairman of AIC Mumbuni District Church Council the Rev. Wellington Kangeti Muema.
Among the key resolution was to offer completely free education to all students from the community.
All one needs to do is to walk to Ikokani Secondary School, sit and study. No payment whatsoever.
The resolution is to be implemented by the community. They also resolved that Rev Kangeti writes to all the AIC churches under his Council to invite them to join the AIC sponsored school.
The stakeholders have hit the ground running and one of them- Jacob Ngumi- who is a Civil Society actor has pitched a campaign on his social media platforms to attain the objective.
"Those who have not joined Form 1, please to report to the School on Wednesday 8/3/2023 at 10am . Please inform all parents to bring the children to the school on that day to enjoy 'free education' ", he posted on Facebook.
