Some Kenyans are calling it the 'annual
choma
(burn) fest'.
This time of the year is characterised by thick plumes of smoke, towering flames, stampedes, deaths and injuries in some cases, mass evacuations and closures of secondary schools across Kenya.
It is yet another season when fires raze buildings, especially dormitories, at learning institutions a few months to KCSE examinations.
The cases are seemingly annual because fires were reported last year - at about the same time - so exam jitters are on the minds of education officials and investigators.
They understand that students get nervous but they say they will deal ruthlessly with the perpetrators, whether students or not, as violence is never the solution to any problem.
But the students, their parents, schools, educations officials and other stakeholders suffer damage, that is sometimes irreparable, when unrest and arson takes place.
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The facilities were expensive and somebody pays tuition, so why is it so easy to start a fire?
One Salome Lugard asked her father, a retired teacher with 37 years' experience, for an explanation.
"The 1960 model of raising children can't work in 2018," the man said.
Lugard is of the view that the ministry led by Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed should make adjustments as boarding schools are now "like prisons", unlike in the past when staying at school was "cool"
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Students of Kisii High School leave following its closure after a dormitory fire that led to the arrests of eight of them, July 11, 2018. /BENSON NYAGESIBA
Isaack Cheboiwo, who joined the discussion on social media, blamed the I-don't-care-attitude.
"Kenya’s society is one that has skewed attitudes and lost morals among youths and adults. The students get supported in their ways by members of society who sell them the fuel they use to burn facilities," he said.
Cheboiwo further termed Kenya a "freedom-ridden society that has lost its value systems and is now characterised by blind freedoms".
"It is a society aping the values of highly developed western societies," he said.
In 2017, when Fred Matiang'i was Interior CS, this type of protests followed a declaration that there would be no cheating during KCPE and KCSE tests.
A task force that investigated that year's incidents cited lack of intelligence-gathering mechanisms and mismanagement of school resources.
It also noted political interference, peer pressure, indiscipline and pressure for candidates to get good grades.
At that time, the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers
said the mass transfers and interdiction of teachers over the unrest made matters worse.
ACTIONS AND PROPOSALS SO FAR
According to statistics from the Kenya National Union of Teachers, 29 schools have experienced unrest since May.
Several students have been arrested as a result and at
a press conference on Thursday, Amina noted the attacks are unwelcome and must end immediately.
"This is a warning to students ...
the exams will take place. We will reopen the schools once all the students involved are arrested and prosecuted," she said.
George Magoha, chairman of the Kenya National Examinations Council, told the students that they will write the exams under trees if they keep burning their facilities.
"Discipline
is not negotiable," he said.
Members of the public rummage through what was left after a fire burnt down a store at Mugumo Primary School, February 15, 2018. /ELIUD WAITHAKA
The government has threatened prosecution of students found culpable, saying some 125 were in police custody.
"Student hooliganism will not be tolerated.
A crime is a crime; it does not matter who commits it," Amina noted yesterday.
The government has also encouraged the establishment of more day schools across the country.
Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang yesterday told the Star that boarding schools will remain in place but that the government is pushing for day wings to be established at all boarding schools.
Earlier, he told the National Assembly Education committee that the day schooling programme will enable parents to engage their children by instilling proper discipline in them.
Nyandarua woman representative Faith Gitau has called for the reintroduction of corporal punishment in schools.
A Twitter user condemned voices against drastic actions while noting that the "national issue
should be addressed urgently".
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