Revealed: How students continue to outsmart teachers to commit crime

Last Sunday, a few minutes before midnight, police in Bungoma received calls about unrest at Cardinal Otunga Girls’ High School.

The students had gone on the rampage, smashing windows, hurling stones apparently because they were unhappy with the principal’s declaration that anyone who scores below grade C would be punished.

Bungoma South police boss David Kirui dispatched a team. While inspecting the school, they stumbled upon a group of boys huddled in the girls’ latrine.

“We were surprised to find them hiding in the girls’ only school. We wondered what their intentions were,” Kirui told Saturday Standard.

What was more puzzling was how four students from Kibabi Boys’ High School, and one from Good Shephard ACK Secondary had walked past the CCTV camera installed at the entrance of the girls’ school, stayed unnoticed by the guards, and remained in the institution despite the hawk eyes of teachers on duty.

Upon investigation, police realised while the girls were on an educational tour at Kibabi, they hatched a plan. They gave the boys their sweaters, sneaked them into their bus, and into the school undetected.

WORKING TOGETHER

“It was a well thought-out plan that made it difficult for anyone to notice, because they were working together,” said Kirui.

A hole on the fence of Cardinal Otunga School also pointed possibilities of another means the boys could have gained access, or how they planned to slide out unnoticed.

Bungoma County Director of Education Jacob Onyiego said nearly 19 boys were in the school compound but police only managed to arrest five.

“The boys could have sneaked into the compound through a hole in one part of the school fence and were helping the girls in causing the unrest,” he said.

Parents of both schools were dumbfounded at how the group of teenagers choreographed the misdemeanour, in secret moves that outsmarted discipline masters.

“Students are thinking of things that baffle all of us. It is a big problem,” said Chrispine Mbote, a parent who took to social media to express concern over the growing cases of grave misconduct in high schools.

Media records indicate that over the years, students have perfected the act of outwitting administrations to commit offenses that border crime.

A few months ago, about 10 boys from Manyatta Secondary School in Migori County are believed to have trekked for almost 35km to a dormitory at St Marys’ Goretti Dede Girls High School. The plan was made through sneaked mobile phones.

The students would have got away with it had the girls not started giggling and conversing in hushed tones over what had transpired the previous night. By the time teachers learnt of what had happened, the boys had left, having spent hours at the dorm, reportedly having sex with the girls.

Former students of Ng’iya Girls High School in Siaya recalled an event in 2003, where boys from a neighbouring school sneaked into their compound, masquerading as vegetable vendors.

It was all planned behind the junior block classrooms. The boys knew vendors got into the school in the evening to make food deliveries. They dressed up as them, and unsuspiciously gained access by pushing handcarts full of kales.

“Teachers have to be keen, otherwise they miss out on a lot of things planned by mischevious students, especially with the widespread use of cell phones,” says Grace Karimi, a teenage psychologist in Nairobi.

GOT OUT OF HAND

A few years ago, police arrested 12 students in Elgeyo Marakwet and confiscated boxes of condoms after they were called to save students of Sing’ore Girls High School who had raised the alarm over what police termed as a plan gone awry.

The girls had allegedly sent messages to the boys, inviting them over, but things got out of hand.

“They screamed and alerted neighbours who called the police. Some boys were arrested trying to escape through the barbed wire,” then Keiyo North Police boss Fredrick Ochieng said.

Guidance and counselling professionals now urge parents to be more hands-on in teaching children on morals.

Martha Khasandi, a member of the Kenya Association of Professional Counsellors, says parents need to be more involved in the guidance of their children.

“We have to put a bit of blame on the parents as they have left everything to the teachers.

“Parents, church and the community have turned a blind eye and expect the teachers to do everything in guiding their children,” she says.

She says schools should hire professional counsellors to properly guide students.

“The Ministry of Education and schools need to be in sync to find ways of dealing with indiscipline in schools since corporal punishment has been removed. We need trained professionals for the guidance and counselling departments so that we manage such indiscipline cases,” she says.

Khasandi says having trained counsellors in schools would properly deal with the indiscipline menace as such incidents were unheard of in the past.

“We used to have social dances when we were in high school and interactions were monitored and we were guided properly on how to behave. Such things were unheard of and it means we have dropped the ball somewhere,” she says.