More than 100 schools are burned down in Kenya

Submitted by Gulai Polye on July 31, 2016

http://www.voanews.com/content/kenya-school-fires-exams/3441420.html

Spikymike

7 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on August 1, 2016

This report is very confusing as to who is responsible and why it is happening. I first thought it might be related to Islamist insurgency but seems it may be a mix of teacher/student dissatisfaction with their conditions?? Maybe someone can throw more light on this later?

Khawaga

7 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on August 1, 2016

From reading the piece GP posted, seems like it could also be the Mafia that made bank on selling exam questions. So yeah, a pretty sloppily written.

Gulai Polye

7 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Gulai Polye on August 1, 2016

As i see it there are two possibilities which makes the situation confusing:
The teachers are not teaching them properly.

So in a response to "what is in bold", the students began cheating for the exams. Then in a response to that some teachers saw a way to make a profit and began selling the correct answers for the exams.
In a response to that the government cracked down on the organised scheme that is going on.
And then maybe in a response to that the ring of teachers have burned down the schools.

The other possibility is that the government tries to cut short the summer holiday, so the students have gone mad and burns down the schools.

Khawaga

7 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on August 1, 2016

Most likely though, the teachers aren't teaching them properly due to not being paid properly. In many developing countries, teachers earn more as private tutors than teachers and may even tutor the same students they teach. The result is always a shitty education system, corruption and so on.

Gulai Polye

7 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Gulai Polye on August 1, 2016

Yeah i think so too

Auld-bod

7 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Auld-bod on August 1, 2016

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36929336

The BBC correspondent claimed that school student’s possessions were burned in the fire, so that could lessen the likelihood that students were responsible.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13681341

‘The Islamist militant Al-Shabab movement, active in Somalia, has also been launching a growing number of attacks in Kenya, including the 2013 Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi and the 2015 attack on Garissa University College in northwest Kenya.’

Perhaps there is a link?

Gulai Polye

7 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Gulai Polye on August 1, 2016

Perhaps there is a link?

Nah people havent died, its too civilised for that. Also Islamic militants likes to take responsibility for their actions.

Nymphalis Antiopa

7 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Nymphalis Antiopa on August 2, 2016

If libcom sectarianism hadn't prevented almost all of you from bothering to look here at this site on the entry for 26 July it says:

this from 11th July might go some way to explaining them.

and then if you click on the link it says

students stormed out of the school on Sunday night protesting against the new "Matiang'i rules." Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i extended the second term in a bid to curb exam cheating. Students were injured in a stampede after police were called in following threats to burn down the institution. Ololunga joins the long list of schools that have experienced unrest recently across the country. School Principal Joseph Kiminta said the students were protesting against, among other issues, extension of the second term. In West Pokot County, students at Chewoyet High School will sleep in the cold after a fire burnt down a dormitory on Sunday night. The fire started around 10.30pm when the students were watching the Euro 2016 football final between Portugal and France. Acting County Commissioner Hezron Nyaberi said no one was injured, but nothing was salvaged.

So you can see the reasons - it was all a pretext for hatred of the European cup.

jef costello

7 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by jef costello on August 2, 2016

At least one fire has been blamed on teachers sending students to bed before the end of a EURO 2016 match, but a lot of the other articles mention the educational reforms which have at very short notice, cut the summer break in half to two weeks, cancelled all social activities and other days off or breaks in the third term (AUG 29 to OCT 28)
There's a list of affected schools.

Nymphalis Antiopa

7 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Nymphalis Antiopa on August 3, 2016

Khawaga:

the teachers aren't teaching them properly due to not being paid properly.

What does "teaching them properly" and "being paid properly" mean? That if they were "paid properly" they'd be able to teach them that it's not enough to destroy their schools but that they should get together with the rest of the working class and peasantry to destroy the whole of capitalist social relations? Can this even be done from the institutionalised inherently hierarchical position a teacher occupies vis a vis school students?

But I have a slight suspicion that it means the opposite: that if they were "paid properly" they'd be better able to repress and domesticate the students so that they wouldn't attack the immediate manifestation of their misery, that they would be financially motivated enough to convince the compulsorily miseducated students to chase after the mirage of a bright future that so-called education dangles like a carrot of hope in front of their deceived eyes, the illusion that if they study hard they'll make it in this dog-eat-dog world and consider the school as an institution worth preserving.

And please, Khawaga, tell us what you consider the proper pay for these enforcers and teachers of domestication and repression should be?

jesuithitsquad

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by jesuithitsquad on August 3, 2016

Cops of the mind

Khawaga

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on August 3, 2016

Nymphalis, it seems as if you have no knowledge of the state of education in developing countries. Or for that matter, you folks that assume teachers are basically cops have almost no understanding of how education actually works.

By to answer your pathetic questions, answers you really should already know unless you were just interested in scoring points due to your silly d-d vs libcom fight that nobody but you cares about.

Paid properly = being able to feed your self and family. In developing countries, which you should know but you don't because of you ideological blinders and desire to score points, wages can be really low, especially for public sector employees, so that people can't feed themselves.

Teaching properly in a context where the final high school exam literally determines your future and could have massive impacts on the well being of you entire family (this exam is also quite common inany developing countries), then preparing the kids for that exam is teaching them properly. Many teachers won't do that in the class room, but only as tutors. Now, of course, this doesn't make that education system any good if they were taught properly and it is as far away from what education should be, but in that particular context that's what properly means.

Cue the ridiculous responses, straw men, and so on by Nymphalis who sadly will continue with points scoring.

Chilli Sauce

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Chilli Sauce on August 4, 2016

Office pool - how many posts until Aufhebengate gets mentioned?

Good post, btw, K.

Khawaga

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on August 4, 2016

Cheers, though damn I make a ton of spelling and grammar mistakes using my phone.

I'm surprised aufhebengate wasn't mentioned already. I guess it sort of was implicitly.

Curious Wednesday

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Curious Wednesday on August 6, 2016

While it may well be true that Nymphalis is point scoring, I think there is a point that s/he makes that you do not answer.

Given the devastating crisis of capital accumulation and the increasing inability of capital to meet the needs of human reproduction, surely s/he is right to say that pursuing a qualification in order to make it out of the shitheap is an illusion at least for the vast majority, and that pursuit of this illusion serves capital insofar as school students who submit to the education system are merely participating in the race to the bottom, learning to treat each other as competitors threatening their chances in an ever-shrinking job market. Although what Khawaga says might have been true before the neoliberal era, in Africa at least it seems that the vast majority will be facing a very hungry future, regardless of whether they have a qualification.

PS I do not understand what the point is for the references to Aufhebengate since Nymphalis never mentioned this. And it is not mentioned in the link s/he posted. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

Khawaga

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on August 6, 2016

What I wrote is very true for the neoliberal era given that my experience from and reading about education in developing countries is all about the neoliberal era. It doesn't matter whether education actually gives you a leg up, but the belief. This belief is what sustains massive informal education economies and why people will do almost anything to have their children pass the high school exam.

Curious Wednesday

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Curious Wednesday on August 6, 2016

The belief

...so belief is separate from illusion? If I believe in God it does not matter? Belief is something completely different from consciousness, which has always to be developed and tested by contesting reality.If it does not matter if it actually gives you a leg up what does matter for those who want a society and social movement which develops consciously, a movement that faces reality? Ideology is always belief like some materialised form of religion. You do not make much sense if you reduce everything to belief.

Khawaga

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on August 7, 2016

I have no interest in discussing semantics. I'm pretty sure that you understood what I meant and I find your reply to be somewhat of a non sequitur.

jef costello

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by jef costello on August 7, 2016

Curious Wednesday

The belief

...so belief is separate from illusion? If I believe in God it does not matter? Belief is something completely different from consciousness, which has always to be developed and tested by contesting reality.If it does not matter if it actually gives you a leg up what does matter for those who want a society and social movement which develops consciously, a movement that faces reality? Ideology is always belief like some materialised form of religion. You do not make much sense if you reduce everything to belief.

If you believe in god and it makes you spend your sundays in a building singing and handing over your tithe then that is as equally real an effect as someone spending time and money on a child's education.

In a lot of countries (I think developing countries especially) there are very important exams in terms of a person's future. For example in France the entire civil service is based on a variety of exams and although there has been reform they are used to maintain informal elites and closed shops. However it is always possible for people outdie of those groups to get through. In India and China the top universities, civil service jobs etc are all based on exams too. So to get someone into the civil service where they get a good permanent salary, a chance to make money on the side, support family members and try to get them inside as well this can be massively important.

One of the problems in the west is that schools have is that the idea that education leads to employment is breaking down, and as the elites have been reducing it to that equation for a long time there is a problem in that a lot of students, correctly, do not believe in that connection and are not willing to participate any more. There's going to be some kind of crash in the UK university system at some point because the level of debt keeps rising, wages have stagnated and jobs that were for school-leavers now require university degrees.

Teachers are often poorly-paid in developing countries, I remember reading a couple of years ago that in Kenya salaries were often six or nine months in arrears. This has two main effects, it demotivates the teachers, it encourages them to earn outside of their job. This means that parents who want their child to succeed i the system can no longer rely on the teacher doing their job but must pay the teacher themselves to get the education that the teacher's salary is supposed to pay for. So these extra payments impoverish the working class even more and put them into a position of competition with those with greater resources.

Curious Wednesday

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Curious Wednesday on August 8, 2016

Khawaga: You might

have no interest in discussing semantics

but even if you are pretty sure that I understood what you meant I clearly understood something different from what you thought you meant when you said

It doesn't matter whether education actually gives you a leg up, but the belief.

If it "actually" doesn't matter and that in fact the belief is an illusion then Nymphalis is clearly right to say that teaching involves convincing

the compulsorily miseducated students to chase after the mirage of a bright future that so-called education dangles like a carrot of hope in front of their deceived eyes, the illusion that if they study hard they'll make it in this dog-eat-dog world and consider the school as an institution worth preserving.

This is not a semantic question but a question of whether or not it is worth sustaining

massive informal education economies

or helping the poor to accept doing

almost anything to have their children pass the high school exam.

Surely teaching no longer involves getting people to qualify so that they can get better pay, at least for the vast majority and that sense of no future might have been a factor in the burning down of these schools.In fact, it seems that the desire to have as equal acces to "cheating" as the ruling class kids was a significant factor from the things I have read about it, which already implies an understanding of the fundamental class differences in making it in this world, even if it does not go far enough as to critique both the form and content of "education". However, those who want a libertarian revolution should surely not just accept these limits as you seem to want to do.

Khawaga

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on August 8, 2016

Nobody is accepting these lists, but merely trying to figure out what is occurring. But you seem quite interested in points scoring considering nobody here has said that the way things are are how they should stay.

Curious Wednesday

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Curious Wednesday on August 9, 2016

Every time someone tries to make a point you reduce it all to point scoring, and ignore what is said. A pointless argumentative tactic. It seems to me that you just want teachers and parents to be judged by their good intentions, a paved road that leads to the intensified hell of no future...

Khawaga

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on August 10, 2016

And the point scoring continues.

Khawaga

7 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on August 10, 2016

And the point scoring continues.