Why students are burning dorms without any remorse

Many theories have been advanced to explain the school fires that have affected more than 100 institutions.

Some believe students are aping their parents, the case in point being recent demonstrations by CORD.

In the South African movie Sarafina, students burnt down their school because their teacher informed them that the school was not meant to help them in any way. She told them that the education system was meant to brainwash them into thinking they were inferior to whites.

To me the same applies to the Kenyan situation. When some of us were in school we were taught about people who contributed immensely to our political and freedom struggles around the globe.

The likes of Sam Nujoma, Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King to name but a few. These personalities were people every other person wanted to emulate in their lives and which is why we have some leaders who are now seriously failing our society today.

There is nothing to smile about right from our schools to our streets. Children are taught how to pass exams and not to be productive in the society. Why should we have a female student in a classroom who cannot even prepare tea for her father and mother when she leaves school?

Why should we have a male student in school at this point in time who cannot even make a wooden tray or stool when he leaves school? Why should we keep our children in the classroom when we know that job opportunities are shrinking every day and even those with jobs are complaining of poor pay?

There are no role models to emulate today. Many of us wanted to be priests because of what the first missionaries did when they landed at the Coast. I wanted to be a teacher because of the kind of life my teachers led, but today a child cannot dream of becoming one because the Government has refused to pay them well.

We have all failed and it is time we all went back to the drawing board. Today, all we read about is corruption. Where are the modern day Kwame Nkrumahs or Martin Luthers? Leaders who would risk it all for the greater good?

{Mutoka Lipuku, Kisumu}

The current school problems started back when Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i started threatening teachers. Calm will return to schools when Dr Matiang’i stops intimidating teachers.

Respecting teachers and their unions will help ensure the new reforms he has recommended are implemented with ease.

Matiang’i should by now have realised that students unrest will only stop if he apologises to teachers and accommodates the views of all players in the education sector. It is high time the minister calmed down and approached issues differently.

He should not waste taxpayers’ money by involving the National Intelligence Services, but amend the new rules and the changes in the school calendar which appear to be the core cause of the unrest in schools

 

{Kibet Benard, Nairobi}

Don’t blame the students for what is happening in our Kenyan schools, blame the entire Kenyan society. We burnt our nation in the 2007/08 post-election violence and no action has been taken against the perpetrators.

We showed our children that one can destroy property and get away with it. Kenyans use violent protests to air their grievances.

{Justin Nkaranga, Mombasa}