Kenya: 72 Students Charged as School Riots Spread
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The Nation (Nairobi)
22 July 2008
Posted to the web 22 July 2008
Seventy two students were Monday charged with arson and other offences related to the ongoing unrest as more strikes were reported in secondary schools.
Ninety others were arrested in connection with the unprecedented chaos.
In the wake of the reports, teachers called for a return of corporal punishment to check the wave of strikes and destruction in schools.
Sixty five of the students were charged with counts ranging from arson to malicious damage following Saturday’s fire at Mbugiti Secondary School in Thika District.
The students, mostly in Forms Three and Four, were charged with setting the school on fire and destroying property valued at more than Sh5 million. They denied the charges.
Trial to begin
Eight students of a Nyeri secondary school were charged in an Othaya court with preparing to burn down the institution.
The eight from various classes at Kagonye Secondary School denied the charge.
The court ordered that each of the students be released on a cash bail of Sh5,000 until August 11 when they will be tried. The magistrate ordered that those unable to raise bail be remanded at Nyeri Juvenile Home until the case is heard and determined.
They were allegedly arrested with two litres of petrol by school administrators.
Elsewhere, police arrested 80 students of Nairobi’s Aquinas High School after they went on the rampage, setting a dormitory on fire and destroying property in their school on Sunday night.
At the Coast, 10 students were arrested and property worth Sh5.2 million destroyed in the continuing wave of unrest in schools. The latest to be affected is Matsangoni Academy, a private school in Kilifi District, whose hostel was razed on Sunday night.
Property worth Sh900,000 was destroyed.
And during their first meeting Monday, representatives of teachers in the committee appointed to look into the unrest called for a review of the Children’s Act to reintroduce caning, which was outlawed five years ago.
Eight more schools were affected by unrest on Sunday night and Monday.
Students of Aquinas, Lenana, Pumwani, Moi Isinya, Jamhuri High School, Parklands and Kiamutugu and Kagonye in Nyeri, were sent home.
The Anglican Church offered to work with the Government and others who are affected in finding solutions to the schools’ crisis.
Abdicated role
A statement from the church also questioned whether parents and teachers had abdicated their leadership and guidance role to children.
Kenya National Union of Teachers chairman George Wesonga said the lack of a clear guideline on the punishment of students after the ban on caning had complicated matters for teachers.
“The Government should be clear on what is to replace caning in schools. Teachers do not know how to deal with errant students,” he added.
He, however, added that parents should instil discipline in their children since teachers were afraid to cane them.
Father George Mungai of the Holy Family Basilica said the absence of another form of punishment was to blame for increased indiscipline.
The Aquinas High School students were arrested by police from Jogoo, Muthurwa, Kamukunji and Shauri Moyo.
They were taken to various police stations after they stormed out of the school at around 11.30pm on Sunday night.
The school’s neighbours said they heard gunshots at around the same time, followed by the boys’ wails as they ran out of the school compound.
Fire-fighters arrived a few minutes later and put out the fire, suspected to have been started by the students in the 90-bed dormitory.
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Little was spared in the fire. Some parents who arrived at the school Monday morning said their sons were arrested in the city centre. Only about 50 of the school’s 450 students remained at the institution.
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