A senior Nakuru County official and a member of the Nakuru Catholic Diocese management board has urged parliament to hasten the passing of a bill that is intended to allow church sponsored schools in the country be controlled by the churches and other sponsors.
Kiogoro Murithi, the director of Environment and Natural Resources at the county government while talking to journalists at the Nakuru Catholic Diocese after a board meeting, observed that the current law hinders direct control of schools under the sponsorship of churches and other charity organisations hinders development at the schools, and asked parliament to hasten the debate on the proposed amendments on the current education act.
According to Kiogora, the Catholic Church which has many schools in the country under its sponsorship, but it lacks a mandate to initiate development programmes in the schools after the new constitution locked sponsored schools to be directly managed by their sponsors.
“The Catholic Church proposed the amendments to the education law to parliament and we are happy members of parliament are working on it. We urge them to quicken debate and pass the amendment law so that the church can continue initiating development projects in the schools so as our children benefit,” said Kiogora, adding that the current law limits the amount of development programmes in sponsored schools due to bureaucracy.
The Education Act 2013 says that basic schools are under government control whether private, public or sponsored.
Amendments to the act are to be tabled in parliament by the Parliamentary Education Committee for debate and passing anytime, after succumbing to pressure mainly from the catholic church which sponsors scores of schools across the country.