Inquiry needed into changes instituted recently by CS Matiang'i

What you need to know:

  • A thoroughgoing inquiry into the arson attacks in secondary schools should be instituted into, and centre around, the changes that have been recently introduced by the energetic, surprisingly mobile and change-minded Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Fred Matiang’i.
  • Dr Matiang’i’s reform initiatives have targeted examinations, with a view to stamping out cheating that had hitherto run rampant, purchase of textbooks with a view to stopping theft of public money, and auditing of books of accounts to ensure taxpayer and donor funds are used for the purposes for which they were procured.

Last week, I listed multiple reasons advanced in various government and scholarly inquiries for the unrest in our schools over the years in a bid to shed light on the on-going wave of arson in Kenya’s public boarding secondary schools.

One study characterised school-based arson as political protest by students. The others dealt with the more traditional – or better known – reasons, including student indiscipline, draconian school rules, uncaring parents, disconnect between teachers and learners and an overbearing ministry.

However, after last week’s meetings between school heads, Ministry of Education and Teachers Service Commission officials and other stakeholders, and from on-going debates in the media, plus student interviews, I am persuaded that neither the traditional nor arson-as-political-protest argument, accounts for this unrelenting school-based arson.

This is especially so given that at the time of filing last week’s piece facilities at upwards of 70 schools had been burnt. As I write this piece, the number has risen to 106. And, surprisingly, in most of these cases, nobody – not a teacher, not an administrator, not a prefect, or watchman even – gets wind of the planning or a whiff of the smell of petrol, or sees the arsonist’s comings and goings.

I am, therefore, of the opinion that a thoroughgoing inquiry into the arson attacks in secondary schools should be instituted into, and centre around, the changes that have been recently introduced by the energetic, surprisingly mobile and change-minded Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Fred Matiang’i.

Dr Matiang’i’s reform initiatives have targeted examinations, with a view to stamping out cheating that had hitherto run rampant, purchase of textbooks with a view to stopping theft of public money, and auditing of books of accounts to ensure taxpayer and donor funds are used for the purposes for which they were procured.

This means investigators will deal mainly with head teachers, administrators and their sundry suppliers. Dr Matiang’i has also introduced changes in the school calendar, visits by parents and prayer meetings, especially for Form Four students preparing for national examinations.

BE INSTRUCTIVE

On the issue of cheating in national examinations, media interviews with students who burnt their schools should be instructive to investigators. Some of them have candidly said that at this time of the year, they would have already raised, or be raising, money for onward transmission for purchase of leaked papers. This means investigators should have students, parents, teachers and administrators on their radar, with a view to establishing the links between schools and the culprits at the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC).

Investigators should also establish if there is school-based and external resistance to Dr Matiang’i’s reform agenda and if and how this is linked to the widespread arson. Now most change will be resisted and mostly by those who stand to lose most from the change.

The most resistance to change, especially in a government bureaucracy, will come from those quarters and persons whose influence will be curtailed, interfered with or, worse, stopped altogether. It is possible that Dr Matiang’i’s change agenda has threatened the cartels that supply books. It would be interesting to know if his disbandment of the previous KNEC board only momentarily scuttled the exam leaking networks, which have regrouped to save their lucrative criminal syndicates.

Dr Matiang’i is on record as blaming leakers of exams for the runaway school-based arson. But the current runs deeper; leakers of exams turn the education system into a certificates-for-cash scandal and entrench examinations as the be-all and end-all of education for a profit.

It is possible that Dr Matiang’i’s impromptu appearances at schools and demands to look at books of accounts and the actual textbooks bought have unmasked crooked school heads and threaten to disrupt corrupt networks. Does this have a bearing on the burning of schools?

Incited or acting on their own, students should not burn their dormitories knowing very well it is their parents who will foot the bill for their reconstruction.

Last, Dr Matiangi deserves credit for moving swiftly to set up a 30-day investigation into the causes of the arson. But my proposal is for a six-month-long, wall-to-wall commission of inquiry into all aspects of use of taxpayer and donor funds in schools, and how to completely stamp out cheating in exams.