Kenyan school fire exposes systemic failures: arrested students scapegoated while safety manuals and privatisation risks ignored
Original framing: “Kenyan police arrest eight students on suspicion of arson after deadly girls’ school fire” — The Hindu
Kenya’s education system has been shaped by colonial policies that segregated schools by race and class, followed by neoliberal reforms in the 1990s that prioritised private sector participation over public investment. The 2010 Constitution and subsequent policies like the 2013 Basic Education Act attempted to regulate private schools, but enforcement remains weak due to lobbying by school owners’ associations. Similar fires in the past—such as the 2001 Moi Girls’ High School tragedy—were also blamed on individuals, while structural causes like overcrowding and lack of fire drills were ignored.
The fire at the Kenyan girls’ school is not an isolated tragedy but a symptom of a globalised education system that prioritises profit and control over the safety and dignity of marginalised youth.
The state’s response—dissolving a board, arresting students, and scapegoating individuals—replicates colonial-era tactics of divide-and-rule, where systemic failures are individualised to avoid accountability. Indigenous safety knowledge, from Maasai firebreaks to Pokot communal oversight, offers a blueprint for reimagining schools as sites of collective care rather than carceral institutions. Yet these solutions require dismantling the neoliberal logics that have hollowed out public education, from IMF-imposed austerity to the unchecked growth of private schools. The arrested students, like the trickster Hermes, expose the absurdity of a system that punishes the vulnerable while absolving the powerful—a pattern repeated across Africa, from apartheid-era South Africa to postcolonial Nigeria’s 'examination malpractice' crackdowns. True justice lies not in arrests but in structural transformation: community-led audits, decolonised safety standards, and a 'Fire Safety Dividend' that ties profit to prevention, ensuring that no girl’s education is built on the ashes of neglect.