NAIROBI: As President Uhuru Kenyatta and his high-powered delegation enjoyed the adulation of crowds at Katulu Primary School in Machakos County yesterday while commissioning the National Schools Electrification Project, hundreds of miles away in North Eastern, head teachers were asking the Government to close all schools in the region and suspend national exams scheduled for the end of the year. This is because schools in the area have remained closed for the better part of the year due to rampant insecurity.
From a professional point of view, the call by head teachers is well meaning, because students who have missed lessons cannot be expected to sit exams for which they are not adequately prepared.
Again, it would be foolhardy to expect a teacher to risk life and limb for a pay-cheque. Looking at the matter critically, besides disadvantaging students from the region, this does not auger well for the country.
Towards the end of last year, Mandera and Wajir counties were rocked by waves of insecurity. In November, at least 28 people, most of them teachers, died in an attack on a bus as they left for the December holidays in Mandera. Ten days later, 36 quarry workers lost their lives at the hands of Al-Shabaab. These two attacks led to a stand-off between the Teachers Service Commission and teachers' unions who then withdrew their members from the region for fear of further attacks. The teachers were thereafter dismissed for disregarding orders to report to work in the first term.
Last month, the murder of 142 students and six security officers during an attack on Garissa University only compounded a dire situation. These senseless killings based on misplaced religious teachings compelled teachers and other civil servants who did not profess Islam to pack their bags and flee, vowing never to return.
The situation in Mandera, Wajir and Garissa is replicated in Baringo, West Pokot and Turkana Counties though not on a scale as that in the three Northern Kenya counties. In these other areas, at least 30 primary schools remain closed, locking out more than 30,000 pupils from school because of bandit attacks.
The need for education in today's society cannot be overemphasised. In fact, parents are encouraged and facilitated to take their children to school. It would be counter-productive for the rest of the country to move on and leave these insecurity-prone areas behind. These areas are barren and little economic activity takes place, if any. Only education offers an escape from the never-ending cycle of poverty. Education is a door opener; a choice giver and a leveller. It unifies communities. It is the great equaliser.
And those who miss the opportunity of schooling will most certainly feel as if the ladder of opportunity has been removed from their lives. If nothing is done to reverse the situation in the North, what will be left is a generation of unschooled, dejected and withdrawn Kenyans who, because they have nothing to live for, provide an unending reservoir of terrorists and other criminals. This must be nipped in the bud. Security for all Kenyans ought to be guaranteed.
Efforts to secure the country against insurgents who appear to have a free run of our territorial boundaries ought to be stepped up. The UN maintains that education is a fundamental human right "essential for the exercise of other human rights and yields important development benefits". The teachers, their employer, Ministry of Education, security agencies and politicians owe it to the children of Northern Kenya an education.
No child should be left behind.
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