Tuesday night saw the on-going rampage by secondary school students escalate after school fires were reported in five different schools.
These included St. Patrick’s Iten School where a timber-walled dormitory housing 88 students went up in flames. The school principal Wilson Yego said that the fire broke out at about 7:30 pm. All the students’ belongings were destroyed.
Elsewhere, Merti Muslim Girls Secondary School became the first institution to experience arson in Isiolo Countyafter the the girls burnt a dormitory that hosted 52 students.
According to Merti sub-County deputy commissioner Julius Maiyo, the fire incident is suspected to have been started by Form Four students who were due to sit mock examinations on Wednesday.
In Rachuonyo South in Homa Bay County, a section of students at Adega Mixed secondary school after a fire broke out at 8pm at the boys dormitory.
Two dormitories at Giakaibei School in Nyeri County were also torched Tuesday night with a dormitory at St Stephen Secondary School, Nkoitoi in Narok County also being set ablaze.
Meanwhile, Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i on Tuesday attributed the ongoing school fires to exam cheats who are currently unable to acquire national examinations leakages. “Students who have been arrested and are facing charges have told police that they were protesting because they had paid for the papers but they have not received them,” Dr Matiang’i said in his Jogoo House office in Nairobi on Tuesday. “They said they had been promised they would get samples towards the end of the second term but that has not been the case.”
Dr. Matiang’i nonetheless ruled out ending the term prematurely, saying the school fires only affected “a small percentage of schools” and did not warrant a drastic decision because it would disrupt the majority of schools, which were operating normally. “The number of schools affected by the school fires is not even one per cent of the secondary schools in Kenya,” said Dr Matiang’i. “There are 9,000 secondary schools in Kenya that are running normally and we are not going to make a policy change by fiat just because of a few misguided students.”
He said 45 per cent of the schools involved were “serial offenders”.
