School riots: Probe finds parents guilty

Parents are in the spotlight over child neglect, with a parliamentary committee recommending that they send their children to boarding schools only when they attain 11 years.

The team investigating school unrests notes that some parents take their children to boarding schools at tender ages, thus denying them family comfort and parental care.

“Some parents have neglected their children and relegated their responsibility to teachers, who are also too busy to guide them,” the committee on Education, Research and Technology notes in its findings tabled in Parliament on Thursday.

The concerns have led the team, chaired by Mosop MP David Koech, to recommend that boarding primary schools be limited to the admission of children aged 11 and above.

The role of parents

The team stresses the role of parents in the upbringing of their children: “The way parents handle their children in the formative years will impact on the discipline of children in later years,” it notes.

The committee says evidence gathered from interested parties shows that parents have failed to impart the relevant cultural values to their children.

“Some parents are poor role models to their children; some drinking and fighting in front of their children, in which case, some children extend the same vices to schools,” the team says in its report

It notes, at the same time, that some parents overprotect their children whenever they make mistakes in schools, adding to student indiscipline.

Also of concern to the investigating team is that some rich parents give too much pocket money to their children and drive them to and from school in expensive cars.

This makes the children display undesirable behaviour later in life, such as drinking, smoking and being rude to everybody.

The committee also accuses moral decay in a society that lacks a value system. “Students are therefore a direct product of the moral decadence in the society,” it says.

Lack of respect

There is lack of respect for seniors by the youth and a complete disregard for taboos and expected norms.

The team blames this state of affairs on politicians as well the religious and professional elite whom it accuses of failing to impart values to the youth, “leaving them to assimilate all that goes on on television and the internet.”

The committee recommends the strengthening of spiritual and moral character building and pastoral care in schools by acquiring resident chaplains.

The MPs recommend also that schools inculcate values in youth by organising special interactions with eminent people.

With regard to role modelling, the Koech team urges people holding positions of authority to project a good image and seek ways to resolve conflicts in order to encourage the youth to grow into responsible adults.

Schools should adopt a system of counselling in which a teacher is identified and assigned a specific number of students to work with them as a “foster parent.”