OTIENO JOHN: Pressure on students cause of school fires

Secondary schools are staring at a huge loss due to the numerous fire outbreaks that have been reported in the country.

This has alarmed parents, stakeholders and the government at large.

The change in the school calendar due to Covid-19  has affected the running of the term where long holidays have been replaced with short ones to enable teachers to cover the lost year due to schools closure.

This has not given students enough time to rest.

All work without play makes Jack a dull boy. Students are now being subjected to the school syllabus but not the curriculum itself.

The schools focus only on just an element of the total curriculum where the students can only study and do exams in different subjects forgetting that they need to also focus on extra curriculum activities.

Poor school management has also led to poor directives and accountability in secondary schools.

This happens because of the higher population of students in schools which cannot be managed by only one teacher, especially during the weekends.

This gives students a free chance to do what they desire without being discovered.

The change of the new curriculum has caused anxiety among learners. Teachers are also being overworked because they need time to go through the training of the modules.

This in turn denies them an opportunity to have the teacher-student relationship hence cannot tell when there is tension in school or any issues bothering the learners.

Due to these cases of fire outbreaks, the Ministry of Education announced a midterm break for all learners to try and curb unrest and rebel behaviour among learners.

We hope this will at least sort this mess.

Student, Rongo University

Edited by Kiilu Damaris