Secondary school heads have proposed new measures to the Education Cabinet Secretary, George Magoha, to curb rising cases of unrest in educational institutions.
The headmasters are insisting on postponing the national examinations for two months till normalcy is restored in all the institutions.
In addition, he proposed early closure of schools to prevent cases of indiscipline.
The school heads justified their move, saying that students may not be ready to appear for the national examinations to be held in March next year, leading to increasing cases of indiscipline.
Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (Kesha) chair Indimuli said that with the spike in cases of unrest, candidates may not have prepared enough to appear for those exams.
Indimuli further said that the teachers have also been impressed in their preparations to conduct the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).
When we brought Form Four students on board last year, these students were left at home for a long time. During this period, they were not engaged properly, and some got into business, while some behaved badly,” said Indimulli.
Kessha Chair further said that the students must have panicked that time was running out and they had not prepared enough.
“While at home, he had a lot of free time. They realize that they no longer have freedom, even as teachers try to reconnect them,” said Indumuli.
Once they got back to school, they realized they weren’t ready for exams and were using bad behavior to express their frustrations.”
The spike in cases has caught and indicted many students, but concerns are high in boarding schools across the country.
It comes as Magoha and his internal counterpart, Fred Matiangai, called for the reintroduction of canning in schools to ease the unrest.
“We must discipline our children and we must insist on certain things that we cannot make an animal society. So our job is to build schools because they burn them down? It’s tough love, our kids have a thing.” One must understand that it takes sacrifice from the parents to have these things,” Matiang’i said
I’m not a subscriber to those things about child human rights, because the Bible says drop the stick and spoil the child, I want us to start talking about how we’re going to discipline our kids.”
On exams and preparation, Magoha urged the students to remain calm so that they can sit for the national examinations.
Magoha said, “Let our learners be calm and ready to sit for the exam because we are going to make sure that we have a ‘human face’ in the exams.”
They should not be added any time mziba wa kujitakia