Did you have similar experience in boarding school?
An online user’s recollection of the difficulties she experienced while in boarding school, has re-opened the debate on life in Kenyan boarding school.
Schea of Sheba gave a blow by blow account of how she and other students were mistreated by the school in the name of upholding discipline in the institution.
Her reflection comes in the wake of a fire incident at Moi Girls School Nairobi which caused the death of nine students and several injured.
“Let’s talk about KE boarding schools & why I walked out of my Catholic school without permission in broad daylight *they call it sneaking,” she said.
“Cleanliness, food & congestion was largely kinda properly managed our biggest problem was teacher-student-parent relationship which was ZERO”
“Once during a typhoid outbreak 3/4 of the school was in heavy paracetamol dosage even though the symptoms weren’t going away.
“When I asked to be taken to the hospital for proper treatment I was in turn punished. Whipped with an iron box wire how dare I ask. As who?
“Meanwhile my desk mate wasn’t even able to bathe herself she was bed ridden from the vomiting and diarrhea yet still on paracetamol.
PASSED OUT
She says that it was until some students passed out in the dormitories that the administration took the matter seriously and took them to hospital. Others were kept under medication at the school.
One day when she could not take it any more she decided to leave the school at 6am and went home.
“Getting home I was hospitalized for three weeks I had malaria +++ and the widal test proved positive for typhoid the doctor was shook (sic).
“I remember him saying I’ll be on medication for a long time and he was right I missed an entire term of school 2mnths at home very sick.
“My school considered our endurance for brutality as discipline. That the less you detested being abused the better disciplined you were.
“There’s so much about boarding schools that needs addressing and brutalizing students isn’t the answer.
“We must discuss and understand mental health as a disease amongst us even in schools. I knew many gals who struggled deeply in silence.”
Kenyans on Twitter had this to say.
There should be a truth justice and reconciliation commission for victims of Kenyan boarding schools. The scars are too deep for most. ?
— ess timate (@vanmauvais) September 6, 2017
You must have been in my Catholic school in western, wa! This reads like our experience ?
— Onyango Rachael (@OnyangoRachael) September 6, 2017
Wow I feel like we went to the same school.
— Ice&Fire (@IrPeris) September 6, 2017
Mine tried to treat some boy’s asthma with panadol from the infirmary
— makau mutiso (@kevowakili) September 6, 2017
This is so accurate, the parents too have to step up. Some just let things slide because they school can’t possibly be wrong.
— TheCampaigner (@carol_kawira) September 6, 2017
