Why you should brace for more school fires under State's watch

Failure to enforce long-standing safety recommendations continues to expose schools to unrest and deadly fires. [File, Standard]

Failure to implement multiple government reports on school fires and unrest is to blame for more lives being lost in schools.

And more lives could be lost if top ministry officials and the country's leadership continue playing hide-and-seek games. The government is yet to fully implement recommendations of its own reports, some put forward by the special investigations team on school unrest.

The reports date back to 1994, including the government-appointed Kirima Task Force, which studied student strikes and arson in schools. In 2001, the government appointed another team, the Task Force on Student Discipline and Unrest in Secondary Schools, whose verdict mirrored findings of the Kirima team.

And in 2016, the government appointed the Claire Omollo Task Force, which restated the recommendations of the last two teams in detail.

Many years later, a spot check across schools reveals sheer negligence of the set regulations, as laid standards of students’ safety are grossly breached. Other reports are the Naomi Wangai report of 2001 and the David Koech report of 2008.

An analysis of these education reports on students’ unrest reveals several recommendations had been forwarded to contain the growing menace. The most recent findings are contained in the 2016 task force report, chaired by Claire Omollo, which laid bare the causes of school fires, especially during the second term.

In the Omollo report, the team recommended that all boarding schools must meet prescribed standards as set by the ministry before they are registered and students admitted.

What borders on impunity is that the recommendations of another government document, titled Safety Standards Manual for Schools, released in 2008, also remain largely on paper.

In all the reports, streamlining boarding schools and establishing functional guidance and counselling departments in schools were key.

Increased involvement of students and their leaders in decision-making, reducing tests ahead of national examinations and training members of school boards on education management were also highlighted.

DCI detectives after retrieving bodies of students who lost their lives in the fire tragedy at Utumishi Girls Acadamy in Gilgil, Nakuru County, on May 28, 2026. [Collins Oduor, Standard]

Other proposals made in the reports were a suggested review of the curriculum to introduce lower secondary and reduce the number of boarding schools.

Years on, the school unrest debate remains a topic discussed in hushed tones in staffrooms and even in Ministry offices. School heads are also in a spot for failing to implement directives issued by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to enhance students’ safety and improve vigilance.

The Omollo report unearthed major administrative flaws in schools and the existence of backward criminal practices and punishable oversights that spark off students’ unrest in school.

The team also exposed poor living conditions, blatant disregard of government policies and collusion between students and teachers that led to unrest, threatening the lives of innocent learners.

Other reasons that led to unrest are school administrators’ highhandedness, bad school rules and lack of proper communication channels. Consequently, the children resorted to burning of school buildings, especially dormitories, administration blocks, classrooms and food stores.

In their own submissions, students listed sudden change of school rules, not being listened to, rampant caning, which led to injuries and peer pressure as some of the reasons that pushed them to burn schools.

The students also listed what they felt would cure the problems. In their recommendations, the students said the administration must embrace dialogue with them.

They also proposed that guidance and counselling should be embraced and firmly implemented in schools. The students also proposed that the school menu be improved and the infrastructure and facilities be upgraded.

Overall, the students proposed that society must come up with better ways of expressing themselves since they are the role models to students. This was in response to violent scenes witnessed by adults in agitating for their freedoms and rights.

According to the report findings, teachers revealed that differences among themselves spilt over to the students, sparking riots and the burning of schools.

Teachers also confessed that too many examinations administered to students instilled fear and anxiety among students, pushing them to riot. Cases of drug abuse, lack of proper communication channels, revenge by indisciplined students and political interference in education matters, in some cases, also dominated the causes of school arsons.

Interviews with principals and school teachers reveal that most of these proposals remain on paper, with only a few schools working to implement them.

The Omollo task force also found that students believed that dormitories were their most valuable buildings, which could make them listen to. In their submission to the task force, students said most dormitories were not safe for learners. “Most of the schools visited had filthy dormitories, as evidenced by the presence of bedbugs and foul smell. There was graffiti on some walls whose paint had peeled off, yet schools were expected to regularly paint buildings,” reads the report.

This was against the government requirement that spelt out how a dormitory should look. But the most ignored report is the Safety Standards Manual for Schools (2008) that spells out the safety requirements of dormitories.

The manual demands that dormitories have double doors, opening outwards and windows without grills were largely ignored. However, students interviewed said burning dormitories was the easiest way of having new ones constructed.

Students injured in the fire tragedy at Utumishi Girls Academy are airlifted from St Joseph Hospital in Gilgil to Nairobi for specialised treatment on May 28, 2026. [Daniel Chege, Standard]

“Students felt that it was the easiest way to have them sent home,” reads the report.

The Omolo task force said dormitories must be cleaned to make them habitable. “Most of the schools visited had overcrowded and congested dormitories with some students sleeping on triple-decker beds to accommodate large numbers and in some cases, students were forced to share beds.”

The 2008 safety manual also required that spaces between beds must be wide enough to allow for manoeuvre and escape during an emergency.

However, the task force found that some of the schools visited had dormitories that did not have any emergency exits or had blocked emergency exits.

The report also found that some dormitories had narrow doors that compromised the safety of students in cases of emergency. “It was observed that in some schools, dormitories were not locked all the time when learners were out, which could have encouraged easy access by intruders,” reads the task force report.

The team also found that some dormitories were sometimes locked from the outside when students were asleep to deter them from sneaking out of the school compounds at night.

And in other cases, the keys to the dormitories were kept by students or watchmen, contrary to the safety regulations which stipulated that keys be in the custody of dormitory masters/ mistresses or dormitory prefects.

“In some schools, the students who had the keys were the suspects in the arson cases,” reads the report.

Some Principals and education officers, however, attributed the congestion in school dormitories to increased demand for spaces in boarding secondary schools and pressure from the Ministry to enrol more students during form one placement.

However, the team found that in other cases, schools rushed to admit boarders without adequate boarding facilities. The team carried out investigations in all the counties and visited 97 schools in 38 counties.

In the affected counties, it was established that in most cases, students were the main culprits in burning incidents and destruction of property. Teachers, support staff and outsiders were also named in some cases.