Parents, teachers and pupils of Apex Children Centre in Muigai-ini area of Juja Sub-County have this morning taken to the streets over what they term as extortion and negligence by the school management.
According to the protesters, the school director and founder Mrs Margret Theuri has absconded her responsibility of paying the institution’s workers among them teachers for the last five months, despite the parents paying their school fees.
Patrick Njoroge, a parent with a pupil in class eight in the institution explained to the press how the school management has been dodging their responsibility and their rights due to their poor states of lives as they cannot educate their children in other private institutions in the area.
The area has no public primary and secondary schools and according to Njoroge, they have been forced to educate their children in the institution at all costs as the other private schools in the area are expensive, and the recently opened public school in Juja is far from the area.
Another parent, Mr George Kamau expressed his concern over the state of matters in the institution, saying that they registered their children for this year’s KCPE but are uncertain on the authenticity of the registration process as the manager has not been seen in the institution since they finalized their registration.
“The children have been attending the classes but no teachers turn up to teach them as they have been not been paid for more than five months. We have moved from office to office in search of justice but no one has come to our rescue yet,” Kamau said.
He added; “We have also submitted our complaints to the area MP Francis Munyua and he has promised to help us in solving the matter but so far he hasn’t helped us in any way. The education officers have been in collusion with the director and we want the government to intervene.”
The embattled teachers on their side told the press that they have suffered in the hands of the school director since September last year as she has been slow in reacting to their grievances.
“She has been promising to pay each month but she has never fulfilled her promises to us. We have been on a go slow for the last two months to pressure her to pay us but she hasn’t reacted to our issue,” Stella Wanjiru, a teacher in the school explained.
An attempt to reach the school director via mobile phone was futile as she didn’t respond to our calls.