The Cabinet Secretary for Education Prof George Magoha has sent a warning to school land grabbers to prepare for the Ministry of Education’s response.
The CS was speaking as he attended the launch of Physical Education and sports policy at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD).
The CS stated that the government is planning to get back land that has been grabbed from schools.
There are around 29,404 public schools in Kenya. Out of this, 24,400 schools do not have title deeds or lease certificates. The lack of documentation of ownership makes schools susceptible to encroachment and land-grabbing.
The National Land Commission (NLC) has at the moment received 4,100 school cases of land grabbing, encroachment, and contestation.
For instance, in the year 2015, there an attempted take-over of Lang’ata Primary School land that brought into light the threat public schools that do not have legal protection over their land are facing from land grabbers.
President Kenyatta instructed the Ministry of Lands to give title deeds to all public school parcels. Howe
ver, only 2.7 percent (roughly 800) of all schools in the country have received their title deeds and have not yet gotten their lease certificates.
In March of 2018, the government began an investigation into grabbing school land but has never released any findings to this date.
“Our audit exercise is not to target individuals but we are aiming to protect land that belongs to education institutions. However, if there are people who take school land, they will be identified and questioned accordingly,” said PS Belio Kipsang who was the Head of the Department of Basic Education in 2018.
Now it is up to the Judiciary and the National Land Commission (NLC) as they attempt to get back land taken away from schools.