Stop it! We cannot sit idly by and watch our schools burn
Ministry of Education officials assess the damage caused fire that razed a dormitory at Amabuko Mixed Secondary School in Kisii on November 3, 2021. The night inferno destroyed property of unknown value with at least 50 students affected.
What you need to know:
- Students should not forget that when schools burn, the effects bounce back on them as it reflects on their performance.
- A conducive learning environment should exist in schools, or else we are not going to have schools in future.
More than 10 high schools have been torched in October alone, leading to massive destruction of property and disruption of learning across the country.
Although the cause of some of the incidents remains unclear, past trends have linked them to a crackdown on exam cheating and other reforms in the education sector.
It is high time the government and other stakeholders intervened to establish the root cause of the fires and how to stop them.
Counselling departments should also be established in all schools.
Students should not forget that when schools burn, the effects bounce back on them as it reflects on their performance in national exams and on their parents, who are forced to dig deeper into their pockets to cover for lost books, uniforms, bedding and other property.
Students should always remember that they are in school to learn. Statistics show that most of the affected institutions are boys schools but that seems to be changing as more girls’ also burn down their schools as seen with the case of Buru Buru Girls.
School infrastructure
A conducive learning environment should exist in schools, or else we are not going to have schools in future. Schools should also communicate effectively to avoid fuelling feuds between the management and the students like in 2018 where some students from a boys school went on rampage after they were denied the chance to watch the World Cup.
In addition, schools should ensure that adequate teachers are left within the school during the weekends to maintain students’ supervision.
When a school of over 600 students is left with only one teacher during the weekends, it means that students are at free will to do whatever they desire.
We should remember that the government spends a lot of public funds to establish school infrastructure. Students should be on the look out and make sure that schools are safe.
There is no need to blame each other; let’s curb this vice if we are to achieve our targeted goals.
Rodgers Otiso is a Journalism student at Rongo University.
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