School safety: Negligence leads to risks, cause of deaths

A Sonko Rescue Team member comforts relatives who could not find their loved ones in the Moi Girls High School fire tragedy (VINCENT ACHUKA)

The fire that killed eight students at Moi Girls School in Nairobi once again turns the spotlight on schools' safety precautions.

According to the safety standards manual (2017), prepared by the Ministry of Education, dormitories are required to have a door at each end and an additional emergency exit in the middle, clearly labelled 'Emergency Exit'.

The rules require that doorways be wide enough, at least five feet wide, and that they open outwards.

Dormitory windows should have no grills and should be easy to open outwards.

Schools are further required to ensure that the space between beds is at least 1.2 metres. The corridor or pathway should not be less than two metres wide. There should be no sharing of beds.

The ministry recommended that boarding schools' dormitories be kept clean and properly ventilated and there should be regular inspection of the fire-extinguishing equipment.

"They should be placed at each exit with fire alarms fitted at easily accessible points. Regular spot checks by the teachers and the administration should be undertaken before learners retire to bed," stipulate the standards.

The Naomi Wangai report  (2001) and the David Koech report (2008) proposed that activities that build tension among students be banned.

A Ministry of Education report, however, found that the recommendations of the two reports were partially or not implemented, yet they are still relevant.

The investigation by Clare Omollo found that of the 168 recommendations in the Wangai report, 65 were fully implemented, 67 partially implemented, 33 not implemented, and three were under implementation.

In the Koech report, of the 122 recommendations, 30 were fully implemented, 45 partially implemented, 38 not implemented, and nine were under implementation.

The team's investigations revealed that there was no regular monitoring and evaluation as well as standards assessment in schools.

"Most schools visited had not been assessed in the past three years. Where assessment had been done, the reports were of poor quality as they lacked basic details which did not in many cases focus on actions to be taken," said the report.

Although the officers cited challenges in implementation and adherence to policy guidelines, the team established that in some cases there was open defiance, negligence of duty, collusion, lack of supervision, and general disregard of professional practice.