Mr. Silas Obuhatsa, Chair National Parents Association<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The National Parents Association (NPA) has this morning sent prayers and heartfelt condolences to all parents, students and staff of Utumishi Girls High School in Gilgil following the terrible night fire inferno that caused extensive destruction, with fears that at least 10 students may have lost their lives while others remain unaccounted for.<\/p>\n
The Association described the incident as painful, unfortunate and deeply heartbreaking, noting that parents across the country continue to suffer immense emotional trauma due to repeated school fire tragedies that continue to claim innocent lives in learning institutions.<\/p>\n
Speaking on behalf of the Association, NPA National Chairman Mr. Silas David Obuhatsa said the country must now treat school safety as a national priority and urgently move to prevent further loss of young lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very painful that parents continue to lose innocent children in circumstances that could possibly be prevented. Learners deserve protection, safety and dignity at all times because they are the future leaders of this nation,\u201d said Obuhatsa.<\/p>\n
The Association has now called on the government to conduct fresh and comprehensive inspections of all school infrastructure across the country, particularly boarding facilities, to ensure they meet proper safety and emergency evacuation standards.<\/p>\n
According to the NPA, some dormitories in schools still resemble enclosed vaults with limited escape routes, making evacuation during emergencies extremely difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has always insisted that dormitories and school infrastructure should allow learners to evacuate quickly in times of danger. Unfortunately, some institutions still maintain outdated structures where students can only be heard screaming from inside but cannot easily be rescued or seen from outside,\u201d the Association noted.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The NPA further emphasized that learners should never be treated like prisoners and urged Boards of Management (BOMs) and Parents Teachers Associations (PTAs) to place the safety and wellbeing of students above all other considerations.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Mr. Obuhatsa appealed to parents of the affected school to remain calm and patient as police and relevant authorities conduct investigations to establish the exact cause of the inferno.<\/p>\n
The Association also cautioned against the tendency of placing blame solely on the government whenever such tragedies occur, saying some dangers can be identified and corrected early through proper management and oversight at the school level.<\/p>\n
\u201cParents must also be fully involved in monitoring boarding school infrastructure and ensuring institutions uphold the highest safety standards for the wellbeing of learners,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n
The National Parents Association reiterated its solidarity with the affected families during this difficult period and called for collective responsibility from all stakeholders in protecting the lives of learners across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NPA Mourns Utumishi Girls Fire Tragedy, Calls for Urgent Nationwide School Safety Audit By Jeff Kizzilah\/Digital Editor\u00a0 Mr. Silas Obuhatsa, Chair National Parents Association … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-latest-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2946,"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions\/2946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livenation254.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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