St. Luke’s High School in Kimilili Students go on a rampage

Students of St. Luke’s High School in Kimilili went on a rampage on Sunday at around 11 pm.

Students unrest commenced at around 11 pm and according to reports, the group of students which consisted of only Form Twos stormed out of the school compound.

The broke out of the school via an ongoing construction section that is fenced with iron sheets.

A video doing rounds online shows the learners breaking out of the school by destroying the iron sheets fencing the construction section. The students then ran their way out of the school.

The Form Twos chanted “Haki yetu… haki yetu…” and marched to Kimilili town which is a 2-kilometer walk.

Police officers called to the scene were involved in running battles with the students in the streets of Kimilili town.

Police had to throw teargas at the students in order to stop the protests.

Even though it is not yet clear what caused the protests, reports say that the learners were protesting over corporal punishment that was meted on one of their colleagues.

Apparently, the school captain got hold of a Form Two student wearing outlawed stuff and decided to severely punish the student.

This happened a few hours after another secondary school in the same constituency, Chesamisi High School, was closed for an indefinite period after student unrest.

Students of Chesamisi protested over charges concerning entertainment for students in the school.

The students destroyed the property of very high value including torching two cars with one allegedly belonging to their school principal.

Since schools reopened on January 4, there has been an increase in cases of students going on strike or unrest and violence in schools, with some experts relating this to COVID-19 stress.

Gross indiscipline has occurred in school recently with a student who refused to be punished for being late to class even going to the level of attacking two teachers in Kisii High School.

The half-term break was also removed from the ongoing term in order to try and recover the time students lost while at home. The government closed schools in March to curb the spread of COVID – 19.

Fingers crossed, the school calendar is scheduled to normalize by the year 2023 as per the guidelines provided by the Ministry of Education.