School fires are a mirror of society

A firefighter tries to extinguish a fire at Kwale High School on July 29, 2016. PHOTO | FAROUK MWABEGE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Schools, being part of our society, are simply expressing what happens in the wider society where violence is idolised and rewarded, and where the language of violence is slowly becoming an alternate national language.
  • Countrymen, we must act fast before the chickens come home to roost.

Kenyan schools have often had disturbances, especially in the second term but what is happening now is simply unprecedented.

Over 130 schools across the country have been affected; scores of students are facing arson charges, with a number of teachers accused of complicity. The matter has attracted the usual finger pointing, with the opposition calling for resignations, closure of all schools and a declaration of a national disaster.

I have followed keenly the debates as to the cause of these burnings, and I am surprised at their lack of depth. Calls for the resignation of Cabinet Secretary Fred Mitiangi over his style of leadership are misplaced. Suggestions that exam cheating networks are fighting back through arson attacks are, in my opinion, too fantastic.

First, Kenyans are paying dearly for a near zero-sum exam oriented education system that places premium on competitiveness than character development. This competitive streak is not only confined to education, but is an accepted attribute of Kenya’s social, economic and political culture.

The fires in our secondary schools might be predictable, but the embers that stoke them run deep. They begin from primary school where it is now common to have overworked, sleep deprived pupils, burdened with sagging school-bags hurtling from class to the endless “tuition” sessions, seven days a week. I have seen class three pupils do homework for hours, having left for school before dawn and arriving from school long after sunset.

Today, the sessions we used to call PE (Physical Education) and games exist only in name, having been replaced with “more tuition”.

These “burned out” kids, robbed of childhood play, enter high school with accumulated pressures. Predictably, most are simply a time-bomb waiting for the simplest of triggers, especially when the dreaded second term mock exams approach.

The ongoing fires are equally a factor of a vastly changed media landscape. School disturbances often ignite processes of affinities in other schools. This draws from a common human condition.

DOUSED SELF

The Arab Spring began in Tunisia when a hawker doused himself with petrol and the aftermath has changed the political and social makeup of three continents. The school fires in Kenya are happening at a time of a pervasive media, where social media has turned everyone into a potential media house, able to create and share stories and photos.

Students are sharing their exploits, especially on social media and this is igniting “contagion effects”, where fires reported and covered in both mainstream and social media become a source of inspiration for subsequent arson elsewhere. While mainstream media must change how they report these fires, teachers must not allow students to have mobile phones in schools.

But there is something else we are missing. The attacks are a form of communication and we must respond appropriately. The current students in our high schools are the pioneers of the Narc-led free primary education where overcrowded, dysfunctional learning education replaced fairly orderly, individualised learning. Are we paying a price for the haphazard massification of education?

I shudder to think what would happen when this lot finally enters university. I am also troubled by the caliber of schools affected by these fires where over 99 percent are the former district and second-tier provincial schools. There is a disturbing class element here that requires a deeper reflection.

The sons and daughters of poor, working and lower middle classes are clearly agitating in a harsh indictment of the class divide in this country.

Indeed, not only are elite schools spared the fires, but older schools with an established culture and admirable tradition of all round excellence in sports, extra-curricular activities and academics have not been affected. This should tell us something.

Finally, the ongoing fires are reflective of other “silenced fires” in our country. We have normalised the practice and discourse of violence. These schools, being part of our society, are simply expressing what happens in the wider society where violence is idolised and rewarded, and where the language of violence is slowly becoming an alternate national language. Countrymen, we must act fast before the chickens come home to roost.