TRUE: The government has closed St. Catherine Bombolulu Primary School in Kibra
A Facebook post claiming that the Ministry of Education has shut down St. Catherine Bombolulu Primary School in Kibra is TRUE.
The post adds that the school was closed on September 25 after the Ministry of Education launched an inspection of school structures in Nairobi.
On September 23, a classroom wall at Precious Talent Primary School collapsed killing eight pupils and injuring over 60 others. The Ministry of Education set up a team to investigate the matter, and asked Precious Talent Primary School learners asked to stay at home for the remainder of the week as the Ministry and other stakeholders work to ensure their safety.
On September 25, Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha ordered the closure of St. Catherine Bombolulu Primary School in Kibra after it emerged that the structure has not been approved. While on a tour of the facility, Prof. Magoha added that the building was not safe for learners since it had a weak structural design.
The CS directed that all the 207 pupils from the school join Ayany Primary School located in the same area.
CS Magoha has also ordered a countrywide inspection of schools to ensure that the infrastructure complies with the standards set by the Ministry of Education.
Pesacheck has looked into the claim that the Ministry of Education has closed St. Catherine Bombolulu Primary School over safety concerns and finds it to be TRUE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Researcher James Okong’o, was edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Ann Ngengere and was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Twaweza, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).