With a population of at least 130 learners, Karakuta Primary School in Juja, Kiambu County, does not offer junior secondary school lessons like it happens in other public and private primary schools across the country.

After grade six, learners wishing to transition to junior secondary schools are often scattered to Karamaini and Mutuma Primary schools which are over ten kilometers away.

The state of decay and dilapidation of Karakuta Primary School has not only brought shame to the school and Juja Constituency but also saw the government deny the institution an opportunity to offer junior secondary school classes.

Tucked along the newly-built Ndarugu-Mang’u Road that links the busy Thika Superhighway to Thika-Magumu Highway, the disturbing images of the structural status of the entire school paints a blurred picture of a neglected, run-down school that is at the verge of closure.

Huge cracks in offices, classes

A visit by journalists to the school revealed that the institution is totally derelict with huge cracks right from the headteacher’s office to the lower class.

Nearly all the classrooms lack doors, windowpanes, habitable floor while others have no roof and as a result, learning usually paralyzes whenever it rains.

Located at the centre of large-scale coffee-farming ranches with huge dams and small forests, the public learning institution has no perimeter fence.

As a result, wild animals such as hyenas, and snakes, have been having a field day at the school, further paralysing learning. The animals have also been attacking pupils early in the morning when they walk to the school.

Theft of school property

Lack of a fence is also said to have resulted in theft of the school appliances such as desks, some of which are used as firewood by the thieves.

According to parents whom we caught up with as they picked their children from the school over fears of being attacked by the wild animals, their children have been suffering from years of wear and tear of the school that was formerly posting splendid results in both local and national exams.

The parents – led by Leah Wambui – decried that their children have been struggling to study under the unsafe buildings despite having made desperate pleadings with their elected leaders to face-lift the institution.

Irked parents cry foul

They regretted that the school’s infrastructure is so ramshackle that one would think the existing structures were abandoned by colonialists.

Speaking at the school, the irked parents took issue with their elected leaders doing nothing to turn around the school’s face.

They pointed out that they have, on numerous occasions, petitioned local leadership to address the plight of the institution in futility and called for prompt interventions to accord the learners a good-learning environment.

Area MP Goerge Koimburi has since promised that the school, which was built during the colonial times, will be renovated.