Several secondary schools in Kiambu County have gone on the rampage in the past three weeks, leaving education stakeholders bewildered. Kijabe Boys, Gatamaiyu Boys, Ngariga Girls, Gathirimu Girls and Stephjoy Girls High School in Lari and Limuru sub-counties have been joined by St Joseph High of Githunguri sub-county in a wave of wildcat strikes.
Other schools will close today to avert strikes, teachers said. Stephjoy Girls was closed on Wednesday evening amid claims students wanted to destroy property at the school again, just two days after reporting back.
The girls had been sent home after a fire erupted at the school a fortnight ago. Parents and teachers blame outright indiscipline, examination fever and infiltration of cults in learning institutions besides use of drugs among students.
Others blamed undue pressure to perform exerted on them by their teachers, especially during mock examinations. Cases of lesbianism and gayism have also been reported by a section of students as the cause of unrest in some schools, where those in such relationships pressurise colleagues and friends to join them.
Those who decline are mistreated. Several students who spoke on grounds of anonymity said the vices are rampant in most schools. “Lesbianism is rife in our school and our efforts to report the same to the school administration have proved fruitless.
We try all we can to decline overtures by lesbians, including changing dorms they dominate but they still follow us, prompting us to go on strike,” revealed a student from one of the affected schools.
Kijabe Boys High School in Lari was closed indefinitely after students set ablaze a dorm, according to the area District Education Officer Stephen Kitungu.
Luckily, the fire was contained after students from lower classes differed with their Form Four colleagues over reasons for staging a strike. Also in Lari, students of Gatamaiyu Boys went on the rampage early this week, destroying property of unknown value before the school was closed indefinitely.
Limuru MP Kiragu Chege has since urged the Education ministry to consider banning mock examinations with a view to averting unrest in schools, most of which are occasioned by mock exam fever.
He was addressing students of Ngarariga Girls High School in Limuru last week who had stormed out of school the previous night over alleged terror threats. It later emerged that the terror threat was a hoax perpetrated by a clique of unruly students who had turned off lights in the dorms.
In Githunguri sub-county, St Joseph High School students allegedly fought among themselves over stolen pairs of slippers, consequently destroying property worth millions of shillings, prompting the immediate closure of the school.
The school was re-opened days later only for the same students to go on the rampage again last Sunday, breaking window panes and desks and forcing the facility to be closed again.
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