We need to rethink the issue of boarding schools because they have a lot of challenges in terms of infrastructure and feeding.
To begin with, we should clearly define the bare minimum requirements before a school is given boarding school status.
Three days ago, we had a discussion with the director general about this and he said the ministry will have further discussions on this for stakeholders to exchange views freely.
In my view, boarding services should be delinked from the teaching and learning services. Parents taking their children to the boarding section would then pay for such services to the level they want. We can completely privatise boarding.
If we look at the original 18 national schools, the cost of boarding was relatively high because of what was being offered in terms of food, infrastructure, social amenities and recreation facilities. Maintaining such facilities was also very costly. Today, we are talking of national schools that cannot even measure up to that level of the 18 yet a child joining such a school has high expectations in terms of services. That is a challenge they have to grapple with.
Today, even the original 18 face a challenge because of the scaling down of fees. We are saying that we must have known bare minimums that a school must meet in terms of infrastructure and amenities before it is declared and recognised as a boarding school.
Today we see a school starting off as day and after two or three years, students have transformed it into boarding with even land for expansion. That is why even the students perhaps are feeling uncomfortable in dormitories and ending up burning them.
Ask yourself why they are not torching libraries or even classrooms.
What we are saying is that the issue could be far away from the reason being given of fear for exams. If the issue was fear of exams then we could be seeing classrooms burning towards October when we are approaching exams.
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The Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association chairman spoke to the Star