A Kenyan university is facing severe criticism after a woman was killed and up to 30 people injured when a safety drill was mistaken for a genuine terrorist attack, causing terrified students to flee and jump out of upper-floor windows. Strathmore University confirmed in a statement on Monday that a staff member, Esther Kidemba, had died as a result of "severe head injuries" during the exercise. She is reported to have thrown herself out of a third-storey window.youtube.com Students told local radio station Capital FM that loud bangs and people pretending to be extremist attackers had caused panic at the university, causing everyone to rush to the exits. Strathmore Uni students teetering on the edge about to take a leap.
On Tuesday morning the university tweeted that the vice chancellor had briefed the Kenyan cabinet on the situation and had ordered a full investigation into "how a drill of that magnitude took place without prerequisite communication".mut.ac.ke The Kenyan police service said institutions should refrain from organising terror drills of their own accord to prevent similar tragedies occurring. "We are on high alert and in case of an attack do not panic, do not kill yourself, we will always be there for you" said inspector Charles Owino Wahong’o in a statement. Kenyans online have been very critical of the university failure to apologise or accept responsibility for the situation. In airplanes they show you where the emergency exists are,how to use a life jacket.They don't simulate a crash. Strathmore did the reverse. The official statement was branded as insensitive, with many asking how a drill meant to keep people safe could have been so ill-conceived. StrathmoreDrill was like those medieval medicines that were more dangerous than the diseases they were trying to cure. Others questioned the level of force used in the drill and asked why students weren’t given adequate warning. StrathmoreDrill. KE citizens trauma inflicted by terrorism is worse than we care to admit. People are living in fear.
TheKenyan government school system arose in the days of British colonial government, and adopted nineteenth-century British traditions of school discipline, including the widespread use of the cane. Nonetheless, awareness of the problems associated with corporal punishment is low, and children, parents, [https://www.mut.ac.ke/academic/mut-undergraduate-programmes.html MUT SET] or teachers who complain about corporal punishment still run a serious risk of facing ridicule or retaliation. This causes most to remain silent except in the face of particularly appalling abuses. School corporal punishment in Kenya has a high degree of cultural acceptance, even approval. Although some teachers inflict severe forms of corporal punishment on students out of deliberate cruelty, probably the great majority of teachers genuinely intend to "educate" children by caning or whipping them.
To the extent that children are seriously injured, many Kenyans are willing to write such incidents off as tragic exceptions in a generally acceptable system, the result of the occasional sadistic teacher or of unfortunate but unavoidable accidents. Some teachers dismissed abuses by noting that serious injuries usually occurred only if a student disobediently thrust out an arm to ward off the cane, and thus ended up with a broken wrist or similar injury. This was viewed as the equivalent of a self-inflicted injury. Others said that authorities should not hold teachers responsible for injuring or killing children who had preexisting medical conditions that made them particularly susceptible to physical punishment, because other students could have withstood the abuse. Poverty helps to create the conditions which lead to the imposition of school corporal punishment.
Parents and communities pay for uniforms, textbooks, building fees (repair, maintenance and construction of school buildings), and activities fees under cost-sharing arrangements between the Kenyan government and local communities. Many poor families struggle to keep their children in school. Their children may face harassment from teachers for wearing torn and dirty uniforms. Instructors may punish students who fail to complete their homework or learn their lessons, yet the children may not have necessary books or school materials, sufficient nutrition, or opportunities or facilities to complete their homework after they leave school. Schools themselves may be crowded, with at times more than fifty students per teacher in a small classroom. These conditions do not facilitate learning or classroom management. While they may explain why teachers feel it is necessary to impose corporal punishment, they do not excuse such actions.
The research for this report was conducted in Kenya from May 2-15, 1999, by a five-person team of Human Rights Watch staff and consultants. This is Human Rights Watch's second report on children in Kenya, following our 1997 report, Juvenile Injustice: Police Abuse and Detention of Street Children in Kenya. For this report, Human Rights Watch visited twenty different government schools spread throughout six different provinces: Nairobi, Central Province, Eastern Province, Rift Valley Province, Nyanza Province, and the Coast Province. We received the permission of the Minister of Education to visit schools of our choosing. Ministry and local education office officials accompanied us to five of the twenty schools we visited. We went to the remainder of the schools on our own.
Seventeen of the schools visited by Human Rights Watch were primary schools and three were secondary schools. Most of the two hundred children we interviewed were between the ages of ten and eighteen. All children were interviewed outside of the presence of teachers and other government officials, and some were interviewed outside of the school setting completely. Children were interviewed individually, and also in small groups, in English or with the use of our local translators. For the most part, the children's stories were quite consistent from region to region, and from school to school. Children interviewed individually and children interviewed in groups also gave us consistent information.
To protect their identities, the names of most children cited in this report have been changed. At every school we visited, we also interviewed teachers and headteachers or deputy headteachers. When possible, we conducted interviews with parents of schoolchildren and with local government officials (education officers, magistrates, prosecutors, and police). Amend the Education Act of 1968 and the Education (School Discipline) Regulations to abolish the use of corporal punishment in all Kenyan schools, public and private.keweb.co The Attorney General should introduce the long-awaited redrafted Children's Bill to parliament for debate and ratification. The bill should abolish corporal punishment of children in all institutions, including regular schools and correctional schools. Ratify the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which Kenya has signed, and implement its provisions.
Support programs that educate parents, teachers, and society at large about the harm of corporal punishment and the existence of effective alternatives.facebook.com Clarify its position on the use of corporal punishment. The Ministry of Education should adopt and disseminate widely a policy prohibiting the use of corporal punishment in schools. Until new regulations are adopted, conduct awareness-raising campaigns regarding the existing regulations and the ministry's reported policy against the use of corporal punishment. Sponsor workshops to train teachers on methods of disciplining students that are not physically abusive. Provide additional instruction to headteachers and deputy headteachers regarding the harms of corporal punishment and the alternatives to corporal punishment.
Until new regulations are adopted, educate parents and students about their rights under the existing regulations. Conduct special meetings at which these rights are explained to parents and pupils, and disseminate widely copies of the regulations. Establish an independent complaints board charged with investigating individual complaints and press and other reports of corporal punishment. Create an ombudsperson to facilitate the lodging of such claims by parents and children. Support the capacity of school guidance and counseling programs to learn about children's family situations, and to work with children's parents to resolve poor behavior or poor performance. Ensure that those conducting guidance and counseling programs for students receive professional training and oversight. Establish a counseling program for teachers, staffed by professionally-trained persons, which is independent of and separate from the local school. This service should provide guidance and support to teachers at risk of inflicting their personal frustrations upon their pupils.
Investigate thoroughly every incident of corporal punishment reported in the Kenyan media and by parents and teachers. Publish the results of investigations, transcripts of disciplinary hearings, and statements of the penalties assessed. Take appropriate and immediate disciplinary action against accused teachers found to have violated the regulations, including counseling, probation, suspension, and termination. Hold headteachers accountable for teachers' actions in their schools. Require teachers to pledge that they will use only nonviolent means of disciplining students. Review teachers' records for incidents of corporal punishment before appointment, assignment, promotion, and transfer. Increase instruction of future teachers on classroom management techniques, including lessons on the harms of corporal punishment and the alternatives to corporal punishment. Make instruction on alternatives to physical means of discipline a mandatory and significant part of the curriculum.
Develop in-session programs for experienced teachers to encourage them not to use physical punishments. Offer these workshops throughout the country. Appoint a faculty member to coordinate training and research efforts. Refrain from disciplining students corporally. Adopt classroom management techniques that do not rely on the use of physical punishment, such as positive reinforcement. Educate and support other teachers to refrain from using physical discipline. Do not prevent students who complain about corporal punishment from attending classes, and do not harass or threaten those students in other ways.mut.ac.ke Report cases of corporal punishment to the Ministry of Education and the Teachers' Service Commission. Headteachers should include incidents of corporal punishment in the Annual Confidential Report that they must submit for each teacher in their school.
Sponsor in-session workshops to train current teachers on non-physically abusive methods of disciplining students. Support the efforts of teachers' training colleges in developing alternatives to corporal punishment. Create support centers for teachers to provide counseling regarding professional and personal matters. Investigate and report incidences of corporal punishment of students. Educate teachers, parents, and children about the harms of corporal punishment. Use its editorial voice to call for an end to corporal punishment in Kenyan schools. The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child should continue to inquire into corporal punishment in schools and to make its best efforts to encourage Kenya and other countries to abolish corporal punishment in all contexts. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture should investigate corporal punishment of children in schools, to determine where school corporal punishment does constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education should investigate the use of corporal punishment in schools and its impact on children and on the right to education. Fund workshops to train Kenyan teachers in non-physically abusive methods of classroom management, tie contributions to attendance and participation in these workshops, and support the creation and distribution of materials to instruct teachers in these methods. Support programs that educate teachers, parents, and society at large about the harm of corporal punishment to children and the existence of effective alternatives. Most corporal punishment in Kenyan schools violates both Kenyan law and international standards. Kenyan law permits limited school corporal punishment, but only in certain highly restricted circumstances. Numerous international and regional human rights institutions have declared that some or all forms of school corporal punishment violate the human rights of children.
The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, and the European Court of Human Rights have all spoken out against corporal punishment generally, viewing it to be a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Many nations around the world have either severely restricted corporal punishment or have banned it outright. Regulations promulgated in 1972 under the Kenyan Education Act of 1968 govern the administration of corporal punishment in schools. Although the regulations permit the imposition of corporal punishment, there is some confusion in the Ministry of Education with regards to whether the ministry allows teachers to cane. Minister of Education Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, M.P. Permanent Secretary of Education Wilfred Kimalat told Human Rights Watch that the ministry discourages use of the cane, although the regulations allow it. Thus the regulations continue to allow the use of corporal punishment, despite the reported ban.
The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the international human rights instrument that most authoritatively prohibits the practice of corporal punishment in schools. The convention has been ratified by almost every nation in the world including Kenya (the sole exceptions are the United States and Somalia). The Committeeon the Rights of the Child is responsible for making authoritative interpretations of the rights contained within the convention, and for reviewing the compliance of states parties. The committee has stated categorically that all forms of corporal punishment are incompatible with the protections given to children under the convention.
Multiple articles in the convention are relevant to the issue of corporal punishment. Article 37 states that children have a right to protection from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Article 28 enshrines children's right to receive a primary education, and article 29 sets forth to what purpose the education of the child shall be directed. Committee members have argued that the difficulties in drawing sharp lines between acceptable and unacceptable forms of corporal punishment require a total ban on the practice, since even mild forms of corporal punishment often in practice becomes severely abusive. The use of corporal punishment also intersects with other rights protected under the Convention. For example, corporal punishment is used to discipline children for speaking local languages in the classroom. Corporal punishment may also discourage children from attending classes at all.
The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment places limits on forms of discipline and punishment, and these limitations apply to corporal punishment as much as they do to any other form of correction. The Committee against Torture has indicated that corporal punishment is incompatible with the provisions of the Convention against Torture. The U.N. special rapporteur on torture has taken the position that judicial corporal punishment is inconsistent with the Convention against Torture and other international human rights norms. These are only a few of the relevant provisions and principles which help to inform a discussion of the legality of corporal punishment in the schools.
The Human Rights Committee (the U.N. Numerous other international human rights instruments contain provisions which either prohibit corporal punishment outright or which severely constrain the practice. International law and the international community recognize the need to protect children in correctional institutional settings from the harmful effects of corporal punishment. From a human rights perspective, it follows logically that children in regular schools should enjoy the same protection. The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights contains a number of provisions which speak broadly to the issues raised by corporal punishment in schools. The charter prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman and degradingtreatment, affirms the dignity and integrity of the person, supports claims for personal security and physical and mental health, prohibits discrimination, and affirms equal protection of the laws.
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, though it has not yet entered into force, provides similar protections, specially tailored for children. The charter prohibits harmful social and cultural practices affecting the welfare, dignity, normal growth, and development of the child. The article on education specifically mentions the need for disciplinary measures to accord with the inherent dignity of the child. Regional African bodies have not yet applied these principles specifically to cases regarding corporal punishment. Nonetheless, the protections in the African Charter track those in the international and other regional human rights instruments. The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms also contains a provision relevant to the issue of corporal punishment. The European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights have examined the issue of corporal punishment in great detail.
The court and commission have determined, in particular cases, that judicial authorities, parents, or teachers have inflicted inappropriate amounts of violence against children as punishment. In the Tyrer Case, the court held that three strokes of the birch against the bare bottom of a fifteen-year-old from local police (executing a juvenile court sentence) was degrading treatment in violation of the European Convention. In the Case of A vs. United Kingdom, the court held that a stepfather who beat his child with a garden cane with considerable force on more than one occasion had violated article 3, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In App. No. 10592/83 v.facebook.com United Kingdom, the commission stated that an actionable article 8 claim arose when school administrators struck one student on each palm and another student on the buttocks with a leather strap.