'Pupils unable to use toilets': Gatundu parents decry poor state of primary school

Officials at a school in Gatundu South have decried the poor state of facilities.

Gachoka Primary School, which neighbours President Uhuru Kenyatta’s home, is in a run-down state and urgently requires face-lift.

A spot check at the school revealed an abandoned learning institution whose classrooms are filled with huge cracks on the walls and the floors while most of the windows have no panes.

Some classrooms lack requisite doors while most of the desks that learners have been using are derelict.

The school's lavatories have been in dilapidated shape, a situation that has been forcing some learners to withhold visits to the toilets even as others brave themselves by using the neglected, collapsing latrines.

According to Moses Thithai, a member of the institution’s board of management, the school has never been repaired since its establishment over 50 years ago and the current pupils are using the same facilities that their grandparents used to use.

Thithai expressed concerns that learners have been registering dismal performance as a result with most parents now opting to transfer their children to the neighbouring schools.

When it rains, children and teachers are forced to be in gumboots as they can hardly access the classrooms due to a poor drainage system at the school.