Only 30% of Public Schools Land have Title deeds, 70% at Risk of Being Grabbed

A recent report indicate that 70 percent of public schools land risk being grabbed by land grabbers.

This can be attributed to lack of title deeds by over 70 percent of 32,354 public schools operating in Kenya. In essence 22,648 schools don’t have title deeds, while only 9705 have titles.

To counter this, the Ministry of Education has now revealed plans to secure title deeds for public schools by 2026.

The report dubbed ‘A Handbook for Public Schools Land Defenders, Shule Yangu Alliance Campaign 2020, states that more than 4,100 public schools have formally reported being at risk of being grabbed due to lack of ownership documents.

Further the report indicates that the responsibility to keep school land from being grabbed falls on government, school management and the community at large.

On its part the government in 2018 introduced procedures that will ease the acquisition of title deeds by schools.

The measures included waiver of fees related to school land titling, which include stamp duty, conveyancing fees, official search costs, registration, and stamp premium.

Further, it conducted a land audit exercise to verify the stages at which different schools are acquiring title deeds.