Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has called for calm and restraint following the tragic dormitory fire at Utumishi Girls Academy that left multiple students dead and several others injured.
Speaking after the incident, the CS emphasized that the cause of the fire remains unknown and warned against early speculation as investigations continue.
The Education CS stressed that authorities are still working to establish what triggered the deadly blaze.
“As we have said, we already do not know the cause of this particular fire and it would be speculative to say it is us.”
He urged the public and stakeholders to allow investigators time to establish facts before drawing conclusions.
“So let’s not be speculative at this stage. But from a policy perspective, we have a safety school manual that all the schools adhere to and I would urge that we wait to see… whether that safety manual was adhered to in this particular school.”
Government Points to School Safety Guidelines
Ogamba noted that Kenya already has a structured school safety framework meant to guide boarding institutions on fire preparedness, evacuation procedures, and infrastructure standards.
He revealed that government audits have previously led to school closures where safety standards were not met.
“We did close to 350 schools that were not meeting the specifications of that particular manual… and we will continue doing audits.”
The CS added that the ministry continues to update safety protocols to prevent similar tragedies in the future.
The Education Ministry reiterated that the priority at this stage is rescue, medical support, and fact-finding rather than speculation about responsibility.
“For today, I would urge that this being the very first briefing on this, let’s keep it at that as we wait to find out what was the real cause of this particular fire.”
The tragedy at Utumishi Girls Academy has reignited national debate over boarding school safety.
As investigations continue, families of victims await answers while authorities work to establish the cause of the devastating school fire tragedy.
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