Yes, we keep kids in school to avoid jail, but now they're coming home
Peter Kimani
By
Peter Kimani
| Nov 06, 2026
Students head home following the closure of schools. [File, Standard]
Looks like this is a great time to be a student; the Ministry of Education has reviewed calendars to have shorter school terms and longer mid-terms. In fact, the midterms stretch between 10 and 12 days, which, in our time, was just about our April holidays that lasted three weeks.
In our time, and that’s a long time ago, mid-term was a mere one day off, so it was basically an extended weekend. We’d be in school for the rest of the year. These days, the number of extended weekends is countless; I’m surprised we haven’t secured a public holiday this month to allow Kenyans a chance to visit their villages and review whether the trees planted during Mazingira Day survived.
Yet, we did not burn down our schools, perhaps because we were not exposed to the spectre of violence that has become the epitome of our existence. I am not suggesting that the early 1990s, when I came of age, were some halcyon.
Even though we were insulated against State repression that defined the late 1980s, we could still read Betrayal in the City in school and be able to comprehend that human rights were something worth extracting from the jaws of a rabidly hysterical regime.
READ MORE
From trash to shoe polish: Nyaga's green business bet
KRA races to raise Sh282b a month to hit target by June next year
M-Pesa, Ethiopia operations drive Safaricom's revenue surge
Illicit cigarette trade cost Kenya Sh47b in five years
Equity Group invests Sh99.5b in social impact and sustainability
Kindiki: Commonwealth must deliver jobs, trade and debt relief
Engineers demand safety audits as Kenya counts deaths from collapsing buildings
How insurance training is addressing the skills gap across Africa
Kenyan dried chillies cleared for China market
Former PS Esther Koimett appointed Lake Turkana Wind Power chairperson
We did not burn down our schools, perhaps because we were aware that even thieves had the morality not to steal from their own hoods. The desecration of our nationhood by a cabal of thieving politicians isn’t just stealing the future of Kenyan children; it’s also stealing their childhood.