Ministry clamps down on drama festivals to limit controversial works
Nyanza
By
Stanley Ongwae
| Mar 20, 2026
Tartar Girls perform a cultural dance during the National Drama Festival state concert at Nakuru State House on April 16, 2025. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard]
The ongoing Nyanza regional drama and music festivals have been modelled into President William Ruto’s own image as the government lays stricter measures to guard against controversial creative pieces.
The move is part of an effort to gag the infiltration of creative works critical of government and some of its controversial policies. The action by the Ministry of Education comes as a measure against the use of playwrights who are not teachers or learners in respective institutions in the production and directing of such pieces of art in the schools’ talent extravaganzas.
This follows an incident that involved Butere Girls when they were stopped from presenting the play “Echoes of War” that was authored and directed by former Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala.
The play that was set in a fictional monarchy explicitly featured themes of political intolerance, digital surveillance, and the potential of digital technology, while focusing on the plight of young people whose needs for good governance and good healthcare were key in the play.
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The Ministry will now be requiring every school that will be presenting any creative item to submit all details of their school, details of learners, including their admission numbers, names of the teachers, their Teachers Service Commission numbers, as well as group photos of the teams. The names of the authors or directors of the creative pieces that are to be staged are also mandatory during the submissions.
This is in addition to the general guidelines contained in the circulars disseminated to all school heads, curriculum support officers and key educational stakeholders before the start of the 2026 Drama and Film festivals, whose theme this year is “Bold storytellers, digital stages, driving Kenya’s development through theatre and film.”
Nyanza Drama and Film Festivals Secretary Paul Odhiambo said the guidelines are being strictly adhered to in this year’s competitions and lauded the Government for sticking to its core calling to enforce the Competence-Based Education in the minds of stakeholders by ensuring the guidelines are well followed.
“The guidelines are meant to ensure learners are originators of the art materials or that their teachers guided them in coming up with the content. This is in the spirit of promoting CBE,” Odhiambo said.
However, interviews with a number of trainers from the schools participating in the festivals established that government agents are also tracking the nature of content presented by the learners.
A trainer told The Standard in confidence that the ministry charged school heads with the responsibility of ensuring that the pieces presented are only those that are not critical of the government. “We believe the government’s strong hand and influence in the festivals will cripple creativity, but no one dares speak about it because of the possible repercussions,” said a teacher.
This perhaps explains the reason senior government officials pitched a tent in all the venues where the pieces were being presented. However, the circular to schools is keen on ensuring that non-teachers are not involved in the process.
So determined is the government in ensuring compliance with the circular that the Ministry’s field coordination and co-curricular activities director, Nelson Sifuna, had to move to the various venues across the country to ensure institutions and organisers of the events comply with the guidelines.
“CS is on top of this, and he wants to ensure all goes well. When we send circulars, ensure you enforce. Make sure all the presentations are authored by teachers or students, not outsiders. We have seen enemies wanting to permeate through other means, but as a ministry, we have intervened, and action has been adequately taken,” Sifuna said.