A few weeks ago, Kenya lost 15 pupils at Kakamega Primary School in a stampede. This adds to an unsightly list of similar deaths elsewhere in the country. There is a need to cut such deaths and maiming as much as possible.
Nothing is as satisfying to many teachers as being the first security for the student at school. But it is even more satisfying to a parent when a son or a daughter returns home in the evening or at end of school term with a smile of contentment and hope.
A few school managers, however, think it is a hoax predicting security lapses. For a planner, though, inaction is not intelligence neither is negligence a distinguishing mark for gentility.
A secure school is where the teacher and the students laugh knowing they are out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.
Top schools ought to be learner-centred. The pupil is the top client, so both public and private institutions should rate safety as highly as possible. In the Kakamega tragedy, Kenya buried the learners with their lofty dreams.
Two things emerge from these tragedies: the lethargy of school managers and the government’s weak quality assurance regime, the latter was highlighted by the Kenya National Union of Teachers secretary general Wilson Sossion at the pupil’s burial mass.
Lack of or substandard exit doors in classrooms, residential, and dining halls is a recurring question and concern. Grills on windows make the situation worse, although the government has outlawed these barriers. Without a second and even third way out, what will the learners and teachers do in the event of a fire, earthquake, or terror attack? It is highly likely that the casualties would go up. In case the learners are lucky to escape, the next most obvious thing is a stampede. That can cause death like happened in Kakamega.
At Kakamega Primary, a section of engineers has said stairways and escape routes are inadequate for the more than 3,000-pupil population. However, it is a big problem when reviews become the norm instead of professionals preventing possible deaths or injuries.
Indeed, it is telling that the Association of Professional Societies of East Africa has faulted its members on implementing their own codes and standards. So, who will protect the ordinary folk when professionals themselves flout own codes?
State regulators are legion, but woes persist when the monitors sleep on the job and only wake up to speak up when tragedies occur. For example, school development plans ought to be submitted for ratification before the works start. Everyone should take responsibility.
In Tanzania, for example, the Ministry of Education liaises with its Internal Security sister and Local Government to train students and staff in schools, colleges, and universities in managing “ordinary” fire incidents.
Every term, local government authorities’ fire brigade visits these institutions to create awareness covering both theory and drills. But all these cannot be successful without a committed boarding teacher or janitor who are knowledgeable and are skilled on disaster management.
A more selfless approach demands that the boarding teacher or the janitor is housed in the school compound or on campus and is provided with the primary requirements: phone and crucial phone numbers, ambulance, lighting, cash, and security guards.
The boarding teacher should share wisdom with students, firming up mitigation and ending up with a special category of volunteers who willingly work to deliver school programmes without hitches, putting safety of fellow students first.
Why has the society alienated itself from children’s daily lives yet we want them to climb the ladder of success? We have to change tack as urgently as possible, starting with collaborations and useful training of the learners and workers whose recruitment pass muster. In an economy like Kenya where unemployment is rife, there is a big risk of ending up with many square pegs in round holes, be they teachers, cooks or janitors, exposing everyone else to more risks.
For a redemption, let’s aim at a situation where the school ownership, managers, learners, parents and guardians do something to secure the pupil right from kindergarten to university.
Safeguarding the child is the finest way to express sincere and genuine love in the wake of calamities. If we take good care and pay steady attention to the learners’ environment while they explore the environment, we prepare them for one important corollary: full responsibility today and tomorrow.
As English psychoanalyst and paediatrician Donald Woods Winnicott once said, the youngster discovers the meaning of learning from the behaviour of the adults around them. Taking security and safety of the learners seriously, therefore, has a pedagogical influence on the student. He begins to understand that his ambitions are endangered by a too risky environment. It also revolutionises our society’s adult consciousness of knowing what is expected of us and doing it, thus becoming right role models.
