Former CS George Magoha had a love-hate relationship with journalists
Former Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha addresses journalists in Eldoret on August 26, 2022.
When Prof George Magoha was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Education in March 2019, he was no stranger to the media fraternity.
Many of us were already acquainted with his gruff talk since he came into the public limelight in 2005 as the first competitively hired Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nairobi.
He served as VC until 2015, after which he was appointed to chair the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec).
He was a natural fit to replace another tough talker, Dr Fred Matiang’i at Jogoo House since the two had worked together to stamp out cheating in national examinations.
Prof Magoha loved the media but could also be quite brusque when dealing with the Fourth Estate.
He would acknowledge the work of the media and called for objectivity in the reportage.
He knew a number of those who worked on the education beat by name but was still not trusting enough to give any of us exclusive information. During his tenure, there were no exclusive interviews with him.
Prof Magoha hardly answered any queries by the journalists on phone and would insist on talking in the field.
He would also turn down requests to appear on TV shows to discuss education and dismissed as “busybodies” those that the media would intend him to share a panel with.
Time-keeper
The former CS was a stickler for keeping time. Whenever his office sent out a media invite, he would arrive about 30 minutes earlier. He preferred early morning engagements and would go for briefings before venturing out to face the public.
As an education journalist, attending Prof Magoha’s events would always be more beneficial than waiting for the press release or his official speech.
He would start his addresses with unscripted comments and go on to adlib the written speech. The big story was always in what he said in the off-the-cuff comments and his answers to questions.
As he often publicly declared that he did not trust anyone, Prof Magoha made sure that information regarding his docket was jealously guarded and only he could authorise its public consumption.
This made the work of journalists quite difficult and we had to rely on “reliable sources”. Over the last two years, the CS also banned the media from accessing examination centres unless accompanied by ministry officials as he put in place measures to curb cheating.
One move that worked against the CS and his zeal to see the implementation of the competency-based curriculum succeed was the secrecy with which he handled the contents of the Prof Fatuma Chege-led task force report.
The document has incredible research work and stakeholder input that would have helped address some of the present challenges the implementation faces.
Prof Magoha died before my NTV colleague Rukia Bulle and I visited his clinic for an exclusive interview, finally, on how he had adjusted to life away from the limelight.
