From: Leo Odera Omolo
Date: Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 2:54 AM
PARENTS AND PTA AT OWIRO AKOKO GIRLS SECONDARY SCHOOL ARE UP IN ARMS, DEMANDING FOR THE IMMEDIATE REMOVAL OF THE HEADMISTRESS, WHO THEY ACCUSE OF RUNING DOWN THE SCHOOL.
Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Awendo Town.
PARENTS and PTA members of the Owiro Akoko Girls Secondary School in Central Sakwa Location, Awendo Division, Rongo district, are up in arms demanding that the schools headmistress be removed with immediate effect.
They accused the head teacher, Mrs Nelly Odongo, of running down the school and that she has been in the school for nine years. During all these years ,the school has never sent any one single student to any of the public universities. The highest marks scored by the students in the school in the KSEC has never gone beyond C-, which is much below the University entry points.
The school is poorly managed and hence poor performance at the national exam. There is immorality and total collapse in discipline. One school teacher is running a chain of four petrol stations at Awendo Town and also at Ranen market, and hardly goes to the classroom, causing a big teaching gap and vacuum. He is doing this with the alleged full knowledge of the Headmistress.
Apart from poor performance, the school has recorded rampant girls pregnancy. On one occasion, the school’s nurse had concealed the pregnancy of a girl student, who later gave birth in the school during the time when the students were sitting for their KSEC exam.
Other allegation against the Principal are that she has employed her own relatives as the school nurse, who has also won tender for the supply of maize-flour meals to the school. The school cataress is also her relative.
Other allegations against the headmistress are complaints about the moral decay at the school. A prominent Luo Oyangla Musician, Onyi Papa was recently invited to perform live music at the school and he recorded live video of dancing pupils while performing, an act which is considered as immoral and unacceptable by the school’s sponsors, the SDA church.
The live music video disc is now on sale at all the music stores throughout Luo-Nyanza. The video is displaying for public view the signboard of Owiro Akoko Girls Secondary School prominently in the background of the video music as the young girls danced to its tone.
Other allegations are that the headmistress and her fellow teacher husband, Mr. Joseph Odongo, have jointly established a private Secondary School, which is called Jornemo Secondary School in Homa-Bay town, and were paying much more attention to their investment, at the expense of the Owiro Akoko Secondary School.
Her husband, Mr. Odongo, until very recently, was the Principal of the nearby Manyatta Secondary School in Waware sub-location, East Sakwa Location, Awendo Division, Rongo district, but was kicked out of the school in a huff and demoted. He was first posted to Migori Teachers Training School as a tutor, but was recently transferred to Homa-Bay Secondary School as an Assistant teacher, after having run down Manyatta School for a couple years.
The Pastor in-charge of boarding secondary schools, under the sponsorship of Ranen Field Mission of the SDA Church, Dr. Phillip Aketch, could not be reached for his immediate comment, and so was the Headmistress, Mrs Nelly Odongo.
Local suppliers have also complained that the school has refused to pay for the goods they supplied. One such supplier, Mr. Koinange Ochieng, has alleged that the school owed him Kshs 28,000 which has remained unpaid for years, and the headmistress has flagrantly and defiantly refused to pay him his money.
The headmistress was recently allegedly heard bragging in private conversation that the staffing officer at the PDE office in Kisumu, one called Beatrice is her former schoolmate, therefore nothing like her transfer could be dreamed of by the local community. Calls to have this unproductive school head removed have gone unanswered, or totally ignored, giving credence to the rumors making the round that she has a lot of connection and influence at the PDE office, therefore demand for her removal from the school is sounding like a pipe dream.
Ends
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com
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Subject: Parents want non-performing headmistress of Owiro Akoko school in Awendo transferred
Teachers residing in the nearby residential houses were forced to move to Awendo and were provided with free transportation every morning and evening so that “No Owiro’s family could get any fringe benefit from the school”. Due to this, Students are not taken care of during preps time, this has led to decrease in performance.
The landlord Mr. Wycliffe Otieno Owiro, Who is also a transporter was denied tender for supply of building sand for the construction of Laboratory and other buildings, instead she used her 2 (Two) tonnes Pickup at the same cost as Mr. Otieno’s Ten (10) tonnes lorry. The Lady is too corrupt, So She Should Pack and go.
The School belongs to the Community and the Government only post the teachers and makes sure that the curriculum is followed properly.It is the community that appoints or elects the Board of governors or the school committee.The headmistress of Owiro Akoko is using the ignorance of the community that the school belongs to her because she is the admnistator or the Pricipal of the school. It is wrong even denying the tender to Wycliffe Otieno Owiro, this is atotal violantion of the rights of the community. The board should have full control of the school not the rouge Principal Mrs Odongo. Mr Otieno file your tender denial or complains to the Board. The name OWIRO AKOKO Itself tells it all, MAYBE THE PRICIPAL DOES NOT KNOW THE MEANING OF THE SCHOOL.
Thanks
Odhiambo Omolo Jakamagambo-Jakodero Bara in USA
AS much as we can talk negative things about someone we should talk about positive imapcts as well its in human to talk on negative impacts and ignoring the positive ones .
Owiro Akoko has been the talk of the day but to those who have making noise about the school performance, can they also tell us what they have contributed to this school.
The owner died. To make it worse, all those talking about the school some are government retreanchings. They should let the school principal to do his work
Since the principal was posted to the schoo,l we have seen positive impacts on performance of the school. Why dont they talk about this one. The school belongs to the community, and its not a must that tender should be given to the village people to supply the school.
It is very wrong for someone who has gone to school up in INDIA to complain he was denied a tender supply.
When someone is doing something good, always their must be noise makers. We should mind what we are publishing in public, and my advice to MR LEO is investigate anything he is planning to publish to public in future coz all we have been reading are rubbish. LETS NOT ENFORCE CHEAP POLITICS IN SCHOOLS MADAM PRINCIPAL NELLY ODONGO HAS MADE US PROUD SINCE SHE JOINED THE SCHOOL. TO ANYONE HAVING DOMESTIC AFFAIRS WITH HER, THEY NEED TO FACE HER BUT NOT WRITE RUBBISH ABOUT SOMEONE .IF YOU’R MAN ENOUGH, FACE THE PRINCIPAL, SHARE WHAT YOU THINK, WHICH CAN MAKE THE SCHOOL PERFORM BETTER THAN ITS BEEN PERFORMING. OTHERS WRITING RUBBISH THINGS ABOUT SOMEONE MANAGING BENARD OWIRO AND HIS ALLIANCE NEED TO APOLOGIZE TO THE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL FOR ALL NEGATIVE THINGS THEY HAVE SAID ABOUT HER.
The embattled headmistress should be transfered.Thanks reporter Leo Odera Omollo for your good job.Keep it up.
It is very sad reading from the ‘concerned youth’. Does it mean those who study in India have less rights as citizens, less rights as community residents and less rights as business people.
India has universities that none in Kenya is comparable to in terms of quality and we know the contribution of the family of the late Owiro Akoko and Otieno Owiro have made to the school.
We know how school heads can mean to misbehave and teach corrrumption both in words and deed to students. One reason corruption is rampant in Kenya is that school heads plant the seeds in the psyche of pupils and students who look at them as role models.
The headmistress must respect the standards of the church sponsoring the school and must also learn how to relate with the community where the school is situated.
I rebuke again the youth for belittling Indian bnased universities. I for one, studied in a local state university but I have seen graduates from India contributing towards the country’s development just like graduates from Kenya and other countries.
Let our youth not be misled by those old ‘ideas’. They are simply counterproductive. IF ONE GET A CHANCE TO GO TO INDIA, PLEASE AND THE EXPOSURE YOU’LL GET THERE WOULD NOT BE THE SAME AS THE ONE YOU GET AT HOME