Why are students setting schools on fire?

There has been a significant increase in arson attacks on Kenya’s secondary schools in the past few weeks – with over 20 incidents reported across the country from Narok to Isiolo, and Nyeri to Nyando. This is not the first time that July has witnessed such a spike. For example, in June and July 2008, there were over 20 incidents of secondary school buildings being set alight, and at least eight in July 2013.

Today, the main suspects are once again the schools’ own students. Incidents are thus not only costly, but beg serious questions about the country’s educational system and the kind of young people it produces. This is critical since youth, as the leaders, workers, and activists of tomorrow, are the ones who can help make or break a society. In Kenya, they also constitute a clear majority.

So why might students burn down their own school buildings?

For some, the explanation lies with student grievances, which lead them to use arson as a form of protest against the stress of exams, poor living conditions, and problems with school management. Thus, according to a BBC report, recent attacks “come amid a government crackdown on exam cheating and other reforms of the education sector”.

However, while student grievances may help explain why there is often a peak in arson attacks around July and November – the time of mock and final exams – it does not explain why students resort to using cans of petrol and a match. Why, for example, do they not stage a protest march or a sit-in instead? Why do they not lobby their board of governors or local politicians?

YOUTH DELIQUENCY

For others, the explanation is youth delinquency and a lack of discipline in modern schools. The idea is that, as one group of students sets their school buildings alight, their peers at other schools follow suit as they have little to fear of the authorities who are unable to punish them physically. However, the explanation is again too simplistic. It is illegal to cane or beat a student in most countries around the world, but this rarely encourages them to burn down their own dormitories.

A more persuasive explanation is that many students see violent protest as the only effective way to draw attention to their grievances. With arson as a preferred choice due to its destructive capacity and the relatively limited chances of getting caught.

Certainly, this is the conclusion reached by Liz Cooper, a Canadian anthropologist, who published a paper on the subject in African Affairs in 2014. In this article, Cooper “sets out to address why students are setting fire to their schools in Kenya”. To this end, Cooper interviews teachers, and current and former students, from affected schools, and finds that most students “explain the use of arson in terms of perceived injustice in their education”. This might, for example, include a sense that they have been inadequately prepared for exams, or that authoritarian and corrupt principals are enriching themselves at the students’ expense.

Yet, Cooper finds that arson in schools is about more than dissatisfaction. Instead, it reflects what young people have “learned about how power and politics work in Kenya – namely, that the demonstration of destructive potential works”. More specifically, Cooper shows how student initiatives to resolve grievances “tend to be neglected until they pose direct threats to public peace and financing”, and how students have learnt the relative effectiveness of “destructive collection action … in winning a response from authorities”.

Finally, Cooper highlights how arson is viewed as a particularly efficacious form of violent protest, since it draws the attention of relevant authorities and often “wins students a break from their ‘prisons’ (a very common description of boarding schools)”. It is “also easy and cheap to implement” and is relatively difficult to prosecute successfully.

For me, Cooper’s analysis is the most persuasive that has been offered. It also suggests that, rather than focusing on student discipline, educational authorities need to consider why students have such poor opinions of school management, and why they feel that it is only violent protest that is likely to have any affect.

Gabrielle Lynch an associate professor of comparative politics at the University of Warwick in the UK; [email protected]; @GabrielleLynch6.