Headteachers Give Demands on Abolishment of Boarding Schools.
Headteachers have used a new tactic to quell school unrest: they have issued new demands to the national government regarding the fate of the country’s boarding schools.
In the most recent development, representatives of the Kenya Primary Schools Headteachers Association (KePSHA) are now urging the ministry of education to abolish boarding schools, particularly for secondary school students, in order to reduce cases of indiscipline, which have been on the rise in recent months.
They have rooted for day schools that will allow parents to be active determinants of the student’s discipline and tame cases of indiscipline in secondary schools in their demands.
Teachers justified their decision by blaming parents for ignoring their primary role in disciplining students, which contributed to the increase in cases.
“KEPSHA proposes that secondary schools become day schools so that parents are involved in raising their children,” they stated in a statement presented by National Secretary Philip Mitei during a delegates’ conference in Mombasa on Thursday, December 30.
The headteachers promised to collaborate with the Kenya National Parents’ Association to promote strong partnership, coordination, and parental engagement to help children re-enter schools and transition from primary to secondary.
KEPSHA chairperson Johnson Nzioka supported the headteachers’ demands, noting that collaboration between teachers and parents will be critical in reducing cases of unrest in the institutions ahead of the reopening of schools in 2022.
“THe added that the kind of misbehaviour that children exhibit in secondary schools can only be curtailed by allowing children to spend the majority of their time with their parents for guidance and counselling.
Nzioka said: “As the child goes home, they are guided and at school, they find a different kind of guidance from teachers. We can instil discipline together. We shall have no more burning of schools.”
Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPETt) expressed similar concerns, recommending that the national government consider converting existing boarding schools to day schools.
“Boarding schools have been overtaken by time. It is a colonial idea. We cannot sustain them. What we need is free and compulsory education for all learners,” KUPPET acting Secretary-General Moses Nthurima stated.
This comes just a day after Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha stated that students who aren’t interested in school should stay at home with their parents. Magoha stated that the decision to abolish boarding schools can only be made after proper consultation with the relevant stakeholders.
“First of all, before we talk about indiscipline, we should ask ourselves whether we need boarding schools or not? In an ideal society where people are normal, boarding schools are supposed to flourish, isn’t it? But it is society to decide whether they continue to be there or not.”
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He insisted that the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) would be critical in the future in curbing indiscipline because it would provide a foundation for the school system.
The suggestions and demands also come at a time when education stakeholders are debating whether to implement corporal punishment in schools, a move that is gaining traction as schools reopen for the third term next week.
Headteachers Give Demands on Abolishment of Boarding Schools
