The Ministry of Education has drawn a firm line amid Kenya’s escalating school unrest crisis, with Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Bitok categorically ruling out any early closure of schools — even as fires and student disturbances continue to sweep through institutions across the country.
Speaking during the Kenya High School Speech and Prize-Giving Day on Thursday, PS Bitok assured parents and teachers that the academic calendar remains intact and that learning is continuing normally in the overwhelming majority of schools.
“We cannot close all schools because learning in the majority of institutions remains uninterrupted,” Bitok stated, adding that isolated incidents of unrest were being tackled through enhanced dialogue with learners and a nationwide audit of safety standards.
The PS’s assurance comes against a deeply unsettling backdrop. On the very morning he spoke, Alliance High School in Kiambu was sending its students home following an early morning dormitory fire — the latest in a string of incidents that has rattled parents, educators, and policymakers alike.
A school calendar under pressure
The timing of the unrest is particularly worrying. Schools, which reopened for the second term on April 27, are just three weeks away from the half-term break scheduled for June 24 to June 28. Education stakeholders fear that prolonged disruptions could derail syllabus coverage and internal examinations, with national assessments looming later in the year.
The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) is scheduled to run from November 2 to November 20, while other national assessments including the KPSEA, KJSEA, and KILEA are all set to begin on October 26. Any significant interruption to second-term learning could have far-reaching consequences for thousands of candidates.
A crisis that keeps growing
The list of affected schools grows longer by the day. In addition to Alliance High School, Nakuru Girls High School was indefinitely closed on Thursday after students requested permission to return home. Loreto Girls High School Limuru and Lenana School were similarly shut down earlier in the week, while Moi Forces Academy, Saseta Girls, and Naivasha Girls High School have all sent learners home in recent days.
Overshadowing all of it is the tragedy at Utumishi Girls Academy in Gilgil, where a dormitory fire on May 28 claimed 16 student lives and left 79 others injured. Nine students have since been charged in connection with the suspected arson attack.
The crisis has also triggered political heat. The Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK) has filed a formal petition to the Public Service Commission seeking the removal of PS Bitok, citing six grounds including gross misconduct and incompetence. The federation declared bluntly: “The children of Kenya deserve better than a PS who presides over a department drowning in rot.”
Bitok, for his part, appears determined to hold the line — though for many Kenyan parents, the question is no longer whether schools will close early, but whether they are safe enough to remain open at all.
