In August 2023, Senator Edwin Sifuna stood before the Senate and tabled a motion. His motion laid bare a terrifying reality that our boarding schools are putting our children in direct danger.
The 100% transition policy jammed every primary school graduate into high schools without adding a single square inch of room. As enrollment skyrocketed, schools crammed kids into laboratories, dining halls, and classrooms. Some dormitories were holding up to ten times the number of students they were built for. Worse, while these buildings fell into complete disrepair, the Ministry of Education delayed capitation funds, leaving principals broke and unable to buy food, supplies, or maintain safety.
Fast forward less than three years. A dormitory at Utumishi Girls Academy catches fire, and 16 girls are dead.
If you listen to the Ministry of Education’s statement when they dissolved the school board for failing to enforce rules, it contains everything Sifuna raised in his motion. The dormitory was overcrowded. The school completely ignored the safety manual. And worst of all, an exit door was locked from the outside while those girls slept.
Yet, the whole country has turned its attention to eight girls.
Let’s assume eight or ten girls snuck out of bed at midnight, started a fire, and locked the others in. But where were the matrons? Where were the guards? Why did it take two whole hours to report the fire? Has Utumishi Academy ever even conducted a fire drill? One parent alleged the school only had one matron.
Arson might explain how a fire starts. It does not explain why 76 girls couldn’t escape without injuries, or why 16 kids had to die. Kenya has been losing children to school fires for 35 years, and the exact same failures keep turning fires into fatalities. At Bombolulu in 1998, 26 girls died because of a locked door and barred windows. At Kyanguli in 2001, 67 boys died. Just recently at Hillside Endarasha, 21 boys perished in an overcrowded dormitory.
Do you actually know if the dorms your kids sleep in have emergency exits? Do they have working fire extinguishers or fire blankets? Have your kids ever been taken through a safety drill, which the Ministry of Education requires every single term? Does your child’s school comply? Have those dorms had real safety inspections? Have you ever actually been inside those dorms?
After the Moi Girls fire in 2017, it came out that many parents saw the inside of their daughters’ dormitory for the very first time on the day of the fire. They had paid fees for years, attended school functions, and celebrated good grades, but they had never once stood in the room where their child slept.
When a family sends a child to boarding school, they are entrusting that school with the child’s safety. The school must answer for that trust, and the family must retain the right to check. A parent cannot do that without seeing the dormitory, knowing the safety layout, and demanding answers. Principals created policies that stripped away parental authority, and to keep our kids alive, we must take that authority back.
The Government should also stop neglecting its supervisory role and should regularly inspect schools to ensure that they comply with safety standards.