12/11/2021
What we are seeing in schools has nothing to do with the curriculum. It is true there is a lot of pressure to complete the syllabus within a shorter period. But remember, students in boarding schools cover the same stuff as those in day schools. So why are there no riots/fires in day schools?
The problem is that majority of our kids do not want to be in boarding schools. Boarding schools of today are not same as of the past years.Things have changed! At home, there's a lot for young boys n girls to enjoy: mobile phones, videos, Tvs, radios,parties etc. Most of us in this wall saw Tvs in school. There was none in the whole village. For this reason school was more attractive than home. In addition,our most students are from urban centers. A school holidays for these kids entails sitting in front of the TV most of the day or doing things with their mobile phones. For the old students(earlier) it was digging/weeding, picking tea n coffee (in the rain), carrying manure to the shamba, milking, etc. While for you and I boarding school was a good place, it cannot be for our brothers n sisters. Imagine telling a boy to leave his mobile phone at home for two months! That he can only watch TV for only two hours during the weekend! That you cannot walk out of that gate unless school has closed for midterm (we used to get an outing every fortnight). In short, to our son's, these are not schools. They are concentration camps! Prisons! That is the problem! A man must run away from prison and go home.
"The problem with Kenyan boarding schools is that they are run on a 'jail model.