NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) — Almost 50 fires have ripped through Kenyan schools this year, 16 schoolgirls have died, and more than 100 schools have temporarily closed. Everyone knows there is a crisis, but few have solutions.
To many, Kenya’s strange and deadly spate of arson attacks is the result of an education system buckling under chronic funding shortfalls and corruption.
Problems are exacerbated by Kenyans’ preference for boarding schools — a legacy of the British colonial system — where children spend months away from parents in institutions often associated with overcrowding, underfunding and abuse.
On 28 May, 16 girls were burned alive after their dormitory at the Utumishi Girls’ Academy in Nakuru County was set ablaze at night. Nine of their classmates are under investigation.
Tasha, 15, only escaped after frantic friends battered down a door that had been locked from the outside, in contravention of fire regulations.
She told Agence France-Presse there were rumors some girls were unhappy about conditions in the school, and were planning a strike.
“I didn’t think they would go that far,” she said at a mass for her lost friends.
Psychologist Catherine Gachutha, ex-chair of Kenya’s Counselling and Psychological Association, said teenagers were usually not malicious but were simply “not looking at the consequences.”
Many are likely copying incidents at other schools, and may also be mirroring the violent protests on Kenyan streets over government corruption and economic stagnation, which often see public areas and businesses set alight.
There are real political issues at play, too: Kenyan children face extreme exam pressure in an economy where just 10 to 20 percent of the workforce have formal employment.
“These are young people who are going through a school system that is not giving them jobs,” said Gachutha, and fires “can be a way of rebelling against the government.”
‘Cash cow’
Few wish to speak openly about the problems.
AFP visited the smoldering ruins of a dorm at Gathiruini Boys Secondary School in Kiambu County earlier this month, where a fire had fortunately left no casualties.
Teachers and local education officials all refused to speak.
One experienced principal of a boarding school in western Kenya was willing to talk to AFP, but only anonymously, as he said teachers could face disciplinary action for speaking to the media.
He said he was forced to send all his pupils home recently after receiving an anonymous note threatening “action.”
