Exams fraud cartels to blame for school unrest – Thika KNUT boss.

Thika KNUT Executive Secretary Joe Mungai Ngige.

Thika KNUT Executive Secretary Joe Mungai Ngige has linked the current wave of school unrest and fires to exam cheating cartels out to disrupt the management national examinations in the country.

While speaking to Thika Town Today over the weekend, Mungai accused these cartels of blackmailing the government’s stringent measures in fighting examination cheating.

He challenged the offices of the Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI) and the National Intelligence Services (NIS) to play a more decisive role in unearthing the underlying factors in the unrest that have wreaked havoc in the country for the last 5 years.

The KNUT boss faulted the arrest of students and linking them to torching of schools arguing that this was only a ‘stop-gap measure and not a full measure’.

“I have never seen any school selling fuel thus these learners are only being used to igniting these fires. Though I am not exonerating juvenile hooliganism in the wanton destruction and proliferation of indiscipline in schools, but there is a ‘hidden’ adult hand that has not been highlighted in this matter,” he stressed

Mungai insisted that any students suspected to be behind the arson should be treated as a criminal and should be dealt with according to the law.

“Most of them are between the ages of 15 -17 thus should be held under probation and upon acquiring the age of 18, be imprisoned like any other criminals,” he said.

He lauded former Education CS Fred Matiang’i and the National Examination Council for putting in place a watertight system to administer, supervise and mark national examinations that is now frustrating examination cheaters and their cartels. 

He challenged Matiangi’s successor CS Amina Mohamed not to give in to attempts to water down the process.

“Already over 70 schools have been set ablaze this year. Last year, over 120 schools were burnt, with 126 schools set on fire in 2016. Should we just sit back and watch students bring down schools? We must reverse this very unfortunate trend otherwise parents will continue bearing the blunt of wanton destruction in our learning institutions that have taken decades to set up,” he concluded

Caption; IMG Joe Mungai KNUT Secretary General Thika branch speaking in Thika today.