By Andanje Wakhungu
There was a sigh of relief at Friends Tande Secondary School last week after many years of internal infightings between the host community and the school management, thanks to the new Principal who has hit the ground running.
In a rare show of solidarity towards the new school administrator, the feared group “Tande Mafia” has unanimously thrown their weight behind the new principal Dan Masitsa. The group decided to support the principal following his move to untangle the institution from sinking into academic oblivion after the community fell out with the former principal in what they termed as incompetency on his part in academic and managerial matters which led to the institution falling to poor performance and low enrolment as parents opted to move their children to other schools.
Led by Tom Sakwa who took many by surprise by his unexpected change of heart contrary to his earlier hard-line stance, he announced during the school’s annual general meeting that they had a lot of faith in the new principal’s leadership skills, terming Mr Masitsa a redeemer who was posted to the institution just in time to salvage it from becoming inconsequential academically.
Mr Sakwa who was addressing the parents on behalf of the community assured the public that they had confidence in the new principal owing to his hands-on experience and being the son of soil who would take the welfare of the students at heart and overhaul the bad academic record bedeviling the school.
Retired area education officer Magana Mwachi expressed his gratitude following the new look environment, he said that he will support education programmes at the school by ensuring that the candidates have an exchange programme with both Musingu and Vihiga schools, as part of sharpening and motivating the current Form Fours, so that they can deliver quality grades. We have already met with the principal and discussed what we should have in the second week after the opening.
The Principal stated that he had already engaged the sub-county assessment from TSC and requested one from the Ministry of Education. “I’m requesting the Ministry of Education through its quality assurance (3rd eye) to come on board in Term 3 and do an assessment too. We need to put our feet down hard and ensure nothing goes amiss from the teaching fraternity to infrastructure to enable us to compete favourably, this is just to see to it that everybody is playing their part right. The board is already willing to motivate the teachers and students, I don’t see why we should lag and I want to call upon my team to know that it won’t be business as usual and let them remember that our success will be a plus to us all.”
Bom chairman Dr Harrison Kavingwa and his Vice Professor Lucas Shamala supported the initiative and added that advanced plans were underway to revamp the school’s academic potential.
The sub-county director of education Rose Chisumi asked the parents and community at large to come on board and support education matters at the school. She assured the principal that the ministry will assess as requested for the betterment of the school teaching fraternity.
