Former Education Permanent Secretary Karega Mutahi, breathed his last on Sunday.
Karega is remembered for his dedicated service to the Ministry of Education during the reign of former President Mwai Kibaki where he was credited with championing various reforms in the Ministry.
Various stakeholders within the education sector have mourned Karega, with the Chairperson of the Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral & Research Hospital Olive Mugenda describing him as a phenomenal leader.
''So sad to lose my good friend and former boss, Prof. Karega Mutahi, former PS MoE. He was the pragmatic PS who got the assignments right and got the work done. When the construction of the Kenyatta University Hospital was almost complete and we were preparing to operationalize it, Prof. Mutahi graciously accepted to chair (as a consultant) the operationalization committee that I appointed as the VC then,’’ Mugenda narrated.
''As PS MoE, Prof supported the Vice Chancellors during my time as VC-KU and his support and hard work contributed to our ability to post good performance and transform KU the way we did. His contribution to the education sector and KUTRRH in that critical operationalization committee will find its place in the book pages when the story is written,’’ she added.
Karega will be remembered for having risen through the ranks to the level of a professor without any prior formal education experience.
"I never went to any high school. In fact, in primary school, I had to repeat a class in primary," Mutahi confessed, in an interview with the Nation.
He went on to reveal that he sat for the Certificate of Primary Education in 1963, scoring an A in English, B in Mathematics, and a D in the general paper.
He later went on to study a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and scaled higher, acquiring a Master of Arts in linguistics from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in linguistics from the University of Nairobi.
Karega will also be remembered for having served in the ministries of Agriculture, Livestock Development and Marketing, the then Office of the Vice President, and Planning and National Development.
However, his time at the Ministry of Education was later marred by allegations of graft related to the Ksh 4.2 billion scandal involving the free primary education program.
Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga pressured for Karega's resignation together with Sam Ongeri, the then Education Minister to pave way for independent investigations into the free primary education scandal. He was later suspended together with 15 officials over the scandal.
