Only weeks into the third term, 29 schools have reportedly been closed indefinitely in Gatundu South, Kiambu County, due to fear of planned arson attacks. Twenty students have been arrested over this disruption of academic activities.
Unfortunately, it is usually around this time of the year when cases of unrest, with some students citing fear of national examinations.
In 2001, a dormitory at Kyanguli Secondary School in Machakos County, was set on fire by two 16 year-olds, killing 67 students and injuring 28 others. I lost a friend who I had just seen a few weeks before at our primary school where we had gone to pick our Kenya Certificate of Primary Education results slips and high school calling letters. May Joseph Muli be remembered forever.
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Years later, a 14-year-old in Form One set fire at the prestigious Moi Girls’ School, killing 10 students. She would later be sentenced to five years in jail. Families of the deceased termed the sentence too lenient. The judge concluded that the girl did not intend to kill her fellow students.
The fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri exactly a year ago took 21 pupils’ lives and 27 others were injured.
Some of the reasons given for the atrocious acts of arson include the dislike of newly appointed teachers and headteachers, poor school diet, student(s) refusal to settle in boarding school and wanting to be transferred to other schools, among others.
I believe, however, that the main reason goes beyond this. A common adage says that a child’s shoulders were not meant to bear the weight of their parents’ choices. I believe that some children see a lot when they are at home during school breaks and conversations around home environments need to be opened and researched.
Pregnancy tests
Children in boarding schools then need to be given personalised mental health checks and care during the beginning of every school term or after midterm, more like how we used to receive random pregnancy tests in girls’ boarding schools or were shown films surrounding HIV and other STIs.
A lot of children are quiet at home because that’s how the home environment is set up where discussions mean that one is being rude to elders. All they’ve learnt to do is to follow instructions and routines without asking questions. When they go back to school, where they are free to talk to their peers who might either relate to the happenings in their home environments or are purely rebels without a cause, they end up discussing and bringing to life their wildest fantasies and dangerous thoughts.
As an adult, setting fire to a building might not be the best solution to your life’s frustration, but this might make sense for a child with memories of the violence they left at home, unaddressed fears that maybe one day someone will come to school to report that one of the parents or guardians is no more or fear that, for one reason or another, they’ll soon have to drop out of school. They therefore see no point in acting like the children they are and with zero guidance. Their actions breed outcomes that are, unfortunately, sometimes fatal.
While there’s simply no good reason to create a criminal record as an arsonist, I strongly believe that if adults create a safe home environment for children to just be children, whether they’re boarders or not, separation anxiety will be a thing of the past. We will be allowing our children to focus on their studies and nothing else.
Ms Ototo is a journalist and a mental health champion
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By Rosebella Ototo