{"id":17556,"date":"2025-04-10T10:23:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T10:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/?p=17556"},"modified":"2025-04-10T10:24:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T10:24:59","slug":"education-ministry-denies-banning-butere-girls-echoes-of-war-play-blames-students-for-walkout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/?p=17556","title":{"rendered":"Education Ministry Denies Banning Butere Girls\u2019 \u2018Echoes of War\u2019 Play, Blames Students for Walkout."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1010\" height=\"844\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2024-08-01-at-17.54.58.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17557\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2024-08-01-at-17.54.58.jpeg 1010w, https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2024-08-01-at-17.54.58-980x819.jpeg 980w, https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2024-08-01-at-17.54.58-480x401.jpeg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1010px, 100vw\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Ministry of Education has denied claims that it blocked Butere Girls High School from performing their now-controversial play, <em>Echoes of War<\/em>, during the National Drama Festivals in Nakuru County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking to the press on Thursday afternoon, Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba said the students chose not to perform, stating they were the ones who \u201cvoluntarily declined\u201d to take the stage. Instead, they chanted the name of former UDA Secretary General Cleophas Malala \u2014 the alleged scriptwriter of the play \u2014 demanding his release following his arrest the previous night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe students began chanting Malala\u2019s name immediately upon arrival. They were fixated on his release, even though it remains unclear what role he plays in the school\u2019s academic or extracurricular activities,\u201d said Ogamba, questioning whether Malala was even a registered teacher at the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ogamba\u2019s comments come amid a wave of criticism from members of the public and political leaders, many of whom decried what they saw as censorship and intimidation of students over a theatrical production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ministry of Education has denied claims that it blocked Butere Girls High School from performing their now-controversial play, Echoes of War, during the National Drama Festivals in Nakuru County. Speaking to the press on Thursday afternoon, Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba said the students chose not to perform, stating they were the ones who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15,3,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-education","category-news","category-political-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2024-08-01-at-17.54.58.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17556"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17559,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17556\/revisions\/17559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}