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Written by Kamale T
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Wednesday, 23 July 2008 |
The media is awash with stories of secondary schools in Kenya all gone mad. The students are no longer burning up substances under Bunsen Burnesrs in the safety of chemistry labs , they are now burning up whole dormitories and stoning their empty classes.
The minister for education is about to form a task force to investigate the cause of this madness.
But if you paused and thought about it, you will recall that at about the same time last year, schools were burnt with similar vigour and after the same fashion. It was the same in 2006 and the year before. It is apparent this orgy repeats itself just after the half term holidays when some examination called Mocks is about to be taken. There is also something else that happens at about the same time. There is the annual Kenya Secondary School Headmasters Association conference. This is a popular haunt for politicians, and this year in Mombasa we had the Right Honourable Prime Minister open the conference with His Excellency the Vice President presiding over the closing ceremony. Kenyans will recall how we were regaled with pictures of pot-bellied headmasters and headmistresses running into the sea with tractor tubes to keep them afloat. The students I am sure did not fail to notice this too.
As is typical of the Kenyan trained journalist, he or she will go to an expert on education to get a righteous and intelligent comment on the causes of this violence. Also in the mix will be a group activists and organisations all adding their two cents worth of advice. After some time you start hearing from organisations such as the Law Society of Kenya, the Institute of Certified Public Accounts and Kenya Institute of Supplies and Marketing also adding their knowledgeable voices to the problems of our education system that are linked to the collapse of discipline in our schools. The Kenyan journalist will quote all these as authority without questioning their credentials.
At the end of it, there will be calls for the Minister for Education to step aside so that investigations can be conducted on what led Pumwani Secondary school or Aquinas High to go on the rampage. Last night on TV, we had trade unionists calling on the minister to act and reinstate the cane which was banned when some activist thought that the African child had enough common sense to understand other forms of punishment that would change him. The activist on the tube, suggested that the white kid is good mannered and yet is not caned.
Now you see, the white kid gets such punishment as “go to your room” or “you are grounded”. The “go to your room” punishment meant that the kid could only watch BBC or Channel 4 and not SkyPlus in the main TV room. His African brother has “no your room to go to.” He probably shares the room with several other siblings or perhaps their house has “no other room”. Now he will still watch KBC and KTN unless you want to blindfold the brat. As for being grounded, it means that among other things your allowance has been chopped off during the grounding period. African kids do not get allowances, and you will need to be in boarding school to get pocket money little enough to last the week, but is good enough to last the term or the next visiting day!
As you can see, the African child requires the cane as the only form of sensible punishment. The pain of “going to your room” is similar to several canes on the African brats bottom. Unfortunately, you then have the African teacher who thinks that the cane is the symbol of authority to lord it over the children. In many schools, children have been maimed by the excited teacher entrusted with a cane. Whilst the law previously said that boys get hit on the bottoms and girls on their palms, the biology teacher thought that the hand or bottom were not too far from the head or shoulder and he would generally miss the prescribed areas and go for the wrong ones. That said, and as far as I am concerned, I do not believe that the cane is the ultimate solution to the problems of indiscipline. The problem is actually how schools are managed!
In the private sector, when one joins a certain cadre, say as an accounts clerk, promotions are premised on experience and passing of professional examinations that not only test competence, but also managerial ability.
Let us have a look at Mr. Wainoga at Wahundura Boys Secondary School. Good Mr. Wainoga graduated from Kenyatta University in 1988 and starting off as a teacher for English and History before going on to head the English Department and thus join the school’s board of studies. He was then promoted to senior master and in 2005 was made Headmaster of the school following the retirement of Mr. Waitara. Mr Wainoga is a trained and experienced chalk, pen and paper jockey. He perhaps learnt a bit about child psychology at Kenyatta University, but then had little time to use it as he needed to complete his X number of lessons per week and also get exams all completed before the school closes for the term. Bottom line is that he has been given a factory full of workers, and machinery and has had no managerial training. He still remembers the cane and can no longer use it because of a bunch of meddlesome activists. Now, how in the good Lord’s name do you expect this man to manage a school and still miraculously avoid a strike by his student who perhaps were incited by teachers who cannot fathom his management style?
I pride myself in having attended a good school, one whose record of discipline is legendary. To many people out there in our time, it was thought that we were living in prison conditions. Perhaps when it got us, we started believing that we were in a German prison, and appropriately called our school Colditz – an 11th century castle that was used as POW repository for communists, Jews and homosexuals during the second world war. Perhaps if we knew the latter were jailed there, we could have changed the name. Our school was Starehe Boys Centre and School. The methods of discipline were regimental but fair. The running of the school was entrusted, not to a teacher, but to an administrator with some experience of it. In order that everyone knew what was going on, there was a daily assembly, a hymn sung, a prayer said and a parade to bring down the school flag. That was every day of the week. On Friday evening, we had our Baraza where parliamentary type immunity was granted to all and one could rave and rant about anything going on in the school as long as it was fair and true. You could have a prefect carpeted for wrongly meting out a punishment and if he was found wrong, he was required to apologise to the victim and the whole school. There was a lot of freedom, and this again came with responsibility. I recall how all of us waited for Upper School Privilege which allowed us to leave the school compound at any time no lessons were on and without our school uniform. Every year, the school accounts were read out to and for us. All the money donors had given, and also how it had been spent. It was understandable when the quality of food dipped in the event of shortages, but someone was sent out to explain this to the students.
This in my mind is common sense management that any school head can apply. There are many school heads that came to see us during our time, and I am sure many still do. It is the application of such changes that will help. Finally provide training to the students on values. Extra curricula activities are a key area of teaching these values and not just the idea of churning out text book robots. We work so hard to limit our youths' horizons, yet wonder when they burn their dormitories and rid themselves of their own personal effects.
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