The dithering Ministry of Education mandarins live in Kenya and, for some strange reason, have been seeing or even hearing about the wave of copycat strikes or arson or threats of arson that have gripped schools since the shocking Utumishi School tragedy of May 28.
The number of schools shut in the past two weeks has hit 70 in that very short time.
Yet the only thing that the ministry bureaucrats believe is worth doing is keeping silent in the hope that the problem will go away. And even after getting no results from the strategy (if it qualifies as a plan), they have decided that they will not change anytime soon.
Only yesterday, and typical of the knee-jerk reactions government communications systems are famous for, the Principal Secretary for Basic Education, Prof Julius Bitok, was transferred to the state department for tourism.
Bitok will have been moved out, but the system his successor inherits remains intact, which is where, in our view, the problem lies. The ministry is teeming with Kenya’s top brains in the management of education in good and bad times. The sensible thing to do now is to give the students a week-long break to break the dangerous cycle of violence.
At this rate, it would not be shocking if another group of unruly students set another school on fire and killed innocent schoolmates.
Quote of the day: “No man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.” —English playwright and poet Ben Jonson was born on June 11, 1572
