Why Nairobi Parents prefer schools in ‘Shagz’

                                        High school girls      Photo: Courtesy

 

A spot check has revealed that at least seven out of every 10 Nairobi parents prefer their children to study in rural secondary schools, preferably in Nyanza, Western, Rift Valley or Central Kenya.

Most parents told The Nairobian that they believe children stand a better chance of performing better and more responsible citizens in rural schools.

“Nairobi is the worst place to educate a teenager. Look around you, in Outering Road; there are pubs in every building. Teenagers like to try things, if I take my child to a rural school; the most they can try is drink chang’aa when they sneak out of school. But in Nairobi, there is a ready and deadly cocktail of drinks, drugs, and sex,” says Christopher Kimani, a father of two sons.

“If Nairobi can wreak and waste university students who take city life head on, imagine what it would do to a fickle adolescent,” he adds.

 

No way, Mombasa

For similar reasons, city parents who talked to The Nairobian were against their children attending secondary schools in Mombasa for fear that they might get initiated into prostitution, drug abuse and other decadent lifestyles associated with regions with tourist-density.

Poor academic performance in the Coastal region also contributes to the unpopularity of schools there unlike schools in Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western, they said.

But while city parents would rather have teenagers secluded in  rural institutions, Nairobi kids can be a challenge to educators upcountry.

“The problem with students from Nairobi is that they have a superiority complex, which makes them look down upon their rural colleagues and consider themselves socially a cut above the rest,” explains Toila Khisa, teacher at Bungoma High School. “They feel they are more exposed. But of course, this is not general. There are others who bond very well with their colleagues.”

 

Sneak and go to disco

For these reasons, he says, some rural schools are reluctant to admit Nairobi students.

Some urban students, the teacher says, have a tendency of sneaking from school to attend discos and drink alcohol while others get a culture shock because they are used to environments where the house girl does everything.

“But as a drama teacher, however, I prefer urban students because they are confident, eloquent and fluent in English and Kiswahili,” adds Toila, who is a national adjudicator at the National Schools and Colleges Drama Festival. “But this does not mean that rural students don’t perform well in languages. There are those who are equally good, if not better.”

 

City parents ‘are bullies’

Besides the students, Toila says some urban parents like bullying teachers and that they defend their children even when they are clearly caught on the wrong side of school rules.

“Some, not all, like babying their teenaged children and they will do everything including lying for them to ensure they evade punishment,” he claims. “Some will even go as far evoking children’s rights and threaten to involve lawyers in small disciplinary matters,” he says.

Toila is among teachers who believe urban students can be a bad influence capable of interrupting the smooth running of rural schools.

A teacher from Ambira High School in Siaya says Nairobi children generally have discipline problems and are the ones most likely to start strikes and burn dormitories.

“In the villages, teachers are widely respected. Few students would dare disobey a teacher. But some Nairobi kids, especially those moneyed, can be a handful. They are disrespectful and influence others negatively,” says a teacher from Ambira High School in Nyanza who preferred to remain anonymous.

“Look at rural schools without students from Kisumu, Nakuru or Nairobi. Learning is smooth and strikes are rare. But a school like ours where half the students are from Nairobi is always troubled.”

His school has reported three arson attacks purportedly organised by urban students in the last one year.

 

Scarcity of schools

The challenge, however, is that most city parents have no choice but to take their children upcountry because of scarcity of schools in Nairobi.

According to the Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics, Nairobi has 985,016 households. Data from the ministry of Education shows that the county has only 60 public secondary schools to serve the close to a million households who dwell in the city.

Of the 60 schools, 16 schools are exclusively for girls, six are mixed boarding, while the rest are either boys’ day or boarding schools.

 

Academic excellence

This leaves parents between a rock and hard place.

Besides, city parents complain that apart from national schools, to which admission is extremely competitive and which are expensive, most Nairobi schools lack a tradition of academic excellence, while some are famed for indiscipline and criminal tendencies.

“I was in Eastleigh High School and I remember my colleagues used to sneak from school and go on mugging sprees along General Waruinge Street during class,” says Anthony Barasa who finished high school in 2000.  “Some were arrested and released on the grounds that they were students while one was almost lynched by a mob in Majengo slums”.

 

Smoking bhang

In 1997, tension was stoked and learning affected for several weeks when Pumwani High School engaged its Jamhuri rival in deadly street battles.

“Considering this kind of disruptions and the fact that smoking bhang and cigarettes in the toilets was the order of the day, I will never let my son attend a city school,” the father of three explains.

“They have the potential to turn an innocent teenager into a hardcore criminal”.

He, however, says he would have been disappointed and disillusioned if his parents had taken him to a rural school.

“Most of my colleagues would complain of bad food, ‘backward’ people and hard labour when we caught up during school holidays,” Barasa recalls.

“They also complained of being the first suspects whenever there was a strike or other forms of student disorder. Some would end up being suspended”.

But he says another reason why most parents in Nairobi – who are often hard up - prefer rural high schools because they are cheaper and affordable.

Learn mother tongue

Joseph Moyale, a teacher at Pumwani High School, echoes the same sentiments.

“Personally I prefer urban students being taken to rural schools because the later instills a sense responsibility and work ethic rarely found in urban learning institutions,” says the tutor whose daughter finished class at Mukumu Boarding School in 2013.

“My daughter can now fetch firewood, light a fire among many other chores that her urban-