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Grade 10 students stranded for the second day after a well-wisher who promised to sponsor their admission to Grade 10 duped them.
A cruel joke is currently doing the rounds in Kenya, masquerading as good news. Eight hundred thousand parents have been told to take their children by the hand, bathe them, dust off their old uniforms and escort them to the Grade 10 schools to which they have been called.
When they reach the gate and are asked about school fees, they are advised to respond, “The president has allowed us to start school”. No increase in school capitation. No reduction in fees.
No structural reform to make secondary education affordable. Just a presidential declaration floating in the air, disconnected from reality, leaving parents to negotiate humiliation at school gates and children to absorb the shame of systems that keep failing them.
This is where Kenyan parenting meets the state: at the gate, confused, desperate, and alone. For years, parents have been conditioned to absorb cruelty quietly. They are told endurance is virtue, that silence is strength, that suffering builds character.
This culture has influenced how we raise children and how we respond when institutions harm them. Collectively, Kenyan parents do not fight hard enough for their children. This is an uncomfortable truth, especially in a country where parents already carry heavy economic burdens. However, avoiding this fact has allowed abuse, extortion and systemic neglect to flourish unchecked.
Brutally assaulted
I learned this lesson in the most personal way. When my brother joined Form One, a teacher brutally assaulted him. He was beaten, shoved into a locker, and his head was smashed until it bled. The violence was deliberate and unchecked. The school tried to silence him, warning him against telling anyone. He still found a way to reach us because he knew that I would not let it go.
When we went to the school, the principal spoke the familiar language of appeasement. He persuaded my father to move on, to avoid trouble, to protect the school’s image. I refused. I returned with an OB number. By that time, my posts were circulating widely, and the teacher was nowhere to be seen. We took my brother to the hospital. Only then did the teacher surface, apologetic and shaken, stunned that someone had challenged him. I told him plainly that touching another child would end his teaching career.
What stayed with me long after was the reaction of other parents. Many defended the violence. They insisted that children must be beaten to be disciplined. They elevated teachers into untouchable saints. They framed humiliation as a necessary ingredient for success. In that worldview, pain is preparation and silence is obedience.
Children are expected to endure violence with the promise that one day they might become doctors or engineers. This thinking has allowed abuse to embed itself deeply within our education system, protected by cultural acceptance and parental fear.
The same silence appears whenever schools double fees. Parents stretch themselves thinner, borrow more, work longer hours, and comply. When the government piles on new costs, levies, and hidden charges, parents swallow it quietly. Every time resistance feels futile, another line is crossed. Over time, silence hardens into habit. Someone on X explained that psychologists call this learned helplessness: repeated exposure to uncontrollable harm convinces people that resistance is pointless. Eventually, even when avenues for change exist, people stop trying. Motivation erodes. Hope dulls. Children inherit the consequences.
This learned helplessness is visible today in the education crisis unfolding across the country. Hundreds of thousands of students are stranded at home because their parents cannot afford school fees in government institutions that were designed to be accessible. Public education has transformed into a privilege disguised as a right. Parents are expected to bridge funding gaps that the State refuses to address. Capitation remains stagnant. Inflation rises. Schools pass the cost downward. Families absorb the blow. Children drop out.
In moments like this, leadership should be urgent and visible. The Speaker of the National Assembly should have recalled Parliament from recess for emergency sittings. Education is a national crisis demanding immediate legislative attention. Instead, the country watches legislators perform loyalty to the Executive, clapping on cue, decorating ceremonies, and avoiding confrontation. Representation has been reduced to theatre. Oversight has been replaced by obedience.
A nation that fails at education and healthcare fails at its most basic responsibilities. These are the twin pillars upon which any functional country stands. When both are shaky, the entire structure becomes unstable. Children grow up underprepared. Families fall into cycles of poverty. Inequality deepens. Anger simmers. Social trust erodes. This is the quiet cost of policy neglect.
The writer is a journalist and a human rights defender. [email protected]
The question parents are beginning to ask is simple and justified: why pay taxes if they cannot secure education for our children? Taxation is a social contract. Citizens contribute resources in exchange for public goods that cannot be efficiently provided individually. When education collapses into a private burden while taxes remain mandatory, that contract breaks. Demanding accountability is not rebellion. It is civic responsibility.
Parents must reclaim their role as defenders. Schools respond when challenged. Authorities react when pressure becomes public. Abusive teachers retreat when consequences appear real. Systems shift when silence ends. Children need adults willing to be inconvenient, loud, and persistent on their behalf. They need parents who refuse to normalise cruelty, who understand that discipline never requires violence, and who recognize that dignity is foundational to learning.
This moment calls for collective courage. Parents organizing, questioning, documenting, and escalating. Legislators being forced to act. Policies being interrogated publicly. Education being treated as the emergency it is. Kenya’s children cannot continue paying for adult resignation. Their futures depend on whether this generation of parents chooses comfort or confrontation.
A country is measured by how fiercely it protects its children. Right now, Kenya is failing that test. The good news is that learned helplessness can be unlearned. Power returns the moment people remember they can push back. The cost of silence has become too high.
This writer is a journalist and a human rights defender. [email protected]
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