Shame of schools without title deeds
Lang’ata Road Primary School pupils carry a placard during a protest against the grabbing of their school playground on January 19, 2015.
Lands Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome has revealed that only 5,226 public schools have title deeds out of the 31,290 public schools across the country.
The damning revelations further indicated there are only 20 public schools with titles in eight counties with school in Tana River having the vital document.
According to the CS, Isiolo and Wajir have one school each with a title, Garissa and Samburu three, Mandera two, Marsabit four and Turkana six. Isiolo has 146 schools, Wajir 298, Garissa 236, Samburu 209, Mandera 311, Marsabit 185 and Turkana 484.
Appearing before the Senate on Wednesday, Ms Wahome said a multi-agency working group was established in 2018 to fast track the titling of public schools.
According to a report by the group, consisting of representatives from the Ministry of Education, Lands and the National Lands Commission (NLC), only 5,226 both public primary and secondary schools have titles.
On the other hand, 5,799 schools have reservations for titling in the registers – meaning the NLC has made reservations for the land and a gazette notice will be issued thereafter.
She decried how the titling process has lagged since 1960 with the titling status being captured as recent as 2019 with some individuals around the schools grabbing lands belonging to the schools.
“It should be noted that this list is not conclusive as there are schools whose titles have been processed but the information has not been captured while others are being processed,” said Ms Wahome.
“This means that we have a long way to go. But even an updated list will not go far from what we have,” she added.
The development came after Kirinyaga Senator James Murango asked the CS to provide a status report on the issuance of title deeds to public schools, particularly in Kirinyaga County.
The senator also wanted the minister to state measures that the government has put in place to expedite the issuance of title deeds to public schools in the county that are yet to receive the same.
In her response, the CS said the county has 335 public schools as per the 2019 audit report comprising 180 public primary and 155 public secondary.
However, only 78 schools have been issued with titles while 157 are reservations for titling leaving 257 untitled.
The 78 schools are 52 for primary and 26 for secondary schools spread across the four constituencies in the county.
Ms Wahome added that land belonging to some three schools – Rwang’o and Kiarugu primary and Nguguini Secondary – have issues ranging from boundary disputes and court cases, respectively.
Marsabit Senator Mohamed Chute questioned why out of 185 schools in Marsabit County only four have title deeds and two others are under reservation.
But the CS responded, saying Marsabit is one of the counties where adjudication has not been completed and the titling of schools will be one of the adjudication processes.
“This time we will be more careful that even when we do the adjudication we complete the titling process,” she said.
The same question was asked by Isiolo Senator Fatuma Dullo who could also not understand how the county has just a single school with a title deed out of 146.
“Isiolo is undergoing community land titling because a majority of land in the county is under the community. It is one of the counties with difficulties such as disagreement on names and boundaries slowing the process,” said Ms Wahome.
Nyeri Senator Wahome Wamatinga also wanted to know why churches have been left behind in the titling process of schools despite also sitting on donated land as schools.
He also wanted to know why colonial villages have been left behind in tilting despite directives from the previous and current regime.
However, the CS said churches are independent institutions and don’t fall under the national government and once land is allocated to a church, it is upon the churches to take up responsibility to look for titles.
“We don’t have the budget to do the same. We can only facilitate them get documents from our registries once they begin the process,” she said.
On the issue of colonial villages, the CS said she has already asked for a report on colonial villages, especially in Nyandarua and Nyeri and she will be giving directions in terms of how to start the titling exercise. She added that there are more than 300 colonial villages in the two counties.
The CS admitted the progress of titling of public land has been slow, uncoordinated and without guidelines.
She explained that the process of identification, mapping, planning, documentation, allocation and registration of public land is multi-sectoral.
However, she pointed out that a raft of measures has been taken to fast track the schools titling programme with a pilot programme scheduled for the current financial year ending June 2024 in Kirinyaga and Busia counties.
“A draft procedure manual on titling of public utilities land has been prepared and is currently being reviewed by the stakeholders. I agree the titling process is slow and we need to expedite the process,” she said.
