Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has, in all his boarding school inspection tours so far, visited dormitories.

While he has been interested in the status of pupil-to-textbook ratio as well as the rate of teacher attendance in the classroom, where ultimately teaching and learning takes place, he has also taken particular interest in the dormitories.

The responsibility of the CS is not restricted to ensuring learners access quality and relevant education, but also that they access that education in a healthy and safe environment.

The Ministry of Education has spelt out minimum standards that schools should abide by in order to ensure a health and safe teaching and learning environment for teachers as well as learners. The guidelines are contained in the Safety Standards Manual for Schools 2008 and informed by a novel concept called Child-Friendly Schools.

The objective of the manual is to create and maintain a safe, secure and caring environment that facilitates and enhances quality teaching and learning processes in all schools in the country.

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The interest of the CS in the dormitories has been to inspect the general level of hygiene and safety standards the ministry stipulates and, crucially, whether dormitories are regularly patrolled by the school security personnel or any other authorised security personnel to this effect.

Besides, the dormitory is not simply a place for sleeping. The dormitory brings together students of different ages, personalities and social backgrounds. It is a community.

Evidently, effective enforcement of Safety Standards Manual for Schools by the schools’ management is what the Cabinet Secretary scouts for when he visits dormitories. His interest in visiting the dormitories is to establish how far the schools have complied with the safety standards’ manual for schools.

The interest in dormitories is premised on the fact that effective learning takes place when a learner’s health and safety are assured. That is an equally important mandate that Matiang’i has evidently taken very seriously.