Rising child deaths in schools should worry us all

Dickson Ndirangu consoles Jane Mwangi during the autopsy of her three-year-old who drowned in a fish pond at Gilgil Hills Academy in Nakuru County. [Julius Chepkwony, Standard]

Kenyan schools are increasingly becoming unsafe for learners. As the first term comes to an end, the Elimu Bora Working Group, an organisation that champions reforms in the education sector, reports that at least eight students have died in schools under unclear circumstances – largely preventable deaths.

On the surface, it might appear that these cases are unfortunate and random, but digging through the archives proves otherwise. All these deaths and dozens more that have happened in the past as a result of school fires, medical negligence, unsafe infrastructure, physical abuse, among other unclear circumstances, point to systematic failures, the State’s inability to protect its children and the larger Kenyan society’s indifference.

Children’s needless deaths should rip the soul of the country apart. They should mortify us. We simply cannot afford to “sympathise and move on”. We must never treat them as isolated incidents but look at the patterns, at our failures to implement child protection policies.

The patterns show that the leading cause of deaths in schools is fires, mainly arson. All these deaths have occurred under the reigns of four regimes, but they persist. Why?

When these disasters strike, the same script unfolds: Stakeholders promise to take action but launch investigations that take forever with no tangible leads. The public forgets until another similar tragedy strikes.

Although the Ministry of Education established laws and regulations to govern safety standards in schools, a study by Isaac Muasya, a researcher at the University of Nairobi, found that “50 per cent of the schools have never carried out fire safety assessment for their schools and the school buildings; the general level of school disaster preparedness was either low or moderate preparation.” Clearly, the problem is not legislation but implementation and safety preparedness.

A child’s death at an institution of learning should concern all of us. Indeed, a child’s death resulting from any cause other than natural should concern all of us. We must pause and tilt our attention long enough to the most vulnerable. We must confront this problem because if we do not, we have no moral right to conduct any other business. Any society that thrives takes care of and protects its future – and the future is forever the children.

What, then, can be done to break this cycle? All learners must have access to emergency healthcare. The curriculum should create room for training on fire safety measures and general emergency preparedness for both learners and school staff. TSC and the Education Ministry must find ways of enforcing safety standards in schools. And we, the public, must hold them accountable. We must never let investigative authorities rest until they provide answers, until families are compensated, until preventative measures are put in place in all schools.

As James Baldwin reminds us, “the children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe”. Protection is thus not just the responsibility of parents and teachers. How we look after the children directly reflects on the kind of society we’re building – and as it looks at the moment, it is contemptible, unkind, unsafe. Failure to protect children is the greatest failure of any society.

Systematic change takes collective action. We must never allow ourselves to “move on” from one tragedy to another as if they are part of our national recipe of unavoidable disasters.

We have killed too many children in schools, and we must collectively do everything possible to ensure we don’t kill one more.

Ms Omwocha is a teacher, parent, author and book editor.