KENYA:Destruction and murder attempts by high-school pupils unhappy with the system appear to mirror post-election upheaval
EXAMS SHOULD be drawing to a close and Kenya's overstretched schools should be winding down for a much-needed holiday.
Instead, almost 300 high schools have shut early to stem a wave of student violence that has razed dormitories, flattened laboratories and shocked a nation where education is revered as an escape route from poverty.
The classroom anarchy shines a light on a divided society still licking its wounds from weeks of ethnic violence that followed disputed elections earlier this year.
Government ministers, teachers and parents are now trying to work out how to pay a bill that will run into hundreds of thousands of euro and ensure that the scenes are never repeated.
The issue has dominated ministerial meetings since exploding last month.
"The Cabinet ordered that discipline and peace must be restored in schools," said a statement published yesterday, setting out a series of measures designed to impose order. Students have blamed overcrowding, lack of facilities, a heavy curriculum, plans to reintroduce corporal punishment and mock exams that were simply too hard. Others say they joined in to support colleagues around the country.
At the same time, parents and teachers have blamed a "spoilt generation" who expect televisions in dormitories: all that is needed is a good, firm thwack of the cane.
Whatever the reasons, the result has been an orgy of destruction as student mobs went on the rampage.
One student was killed in a dormitory fire at a Nairobi school, while scores have been injured in the anarchy.
Dozens of pupils have been arrested on arson charges.
At least 12 boys from one school in the Rift Valley have been accused of attempted murder.
In response, mobile phones - used to help organise the violence - have been banned from classrooms and transfers of pupils between schools suspended to try to halt the spread of unrest.
Ken Ouko, a sociologist at the University of Nairobi, said the violence was a symptom of a deeper economic and political malaise in Kenyan society as much as an uprising against conditions in schools.
In that way, he added, it mirrored the unrest that followed Kenya's disputed elections, when more than 1,000 people died.
"They saw the violence expressed by their parents, uncles and guardians in January and February - and beyond that there's also a general frustration at the economic situation," he said.
"Schools really are the only place they can express that."
He added that many children had older brothers and sisters who had graduated from college but were still unable to find good jobs, undermining the widespread faith that education is the key to a better life.
Many students already complain of stress caused by high expectations and the belief that without good grades they will end up qualified for nothing other than pushing a handcart around the streets.
The pressure is intensified by a system that relies on end-of-year testing with little emphasis on coursework.
"My family have made it clear that they expect me to succeed," said David Mbugua (16), a pupil at a Nairobi school. "I think with so much pressure it is inevitable that sometimes things explode."
It should all have been so different.
When he became president in 2003, Mwai Kibaki promised to introduce free primary education. He upped the promise to include free secondary education when he won re-election in a disputed vote last December.
But, so far, not enough extra money has made its way into the school system. Even if classes are free, many families struggle to buy books and uniforms. Classrooms are frequently overcrowded. Places at universities remain scarce.
And in a country where boarding schools are viewed as the best place for learning, many parents would rather scrimp and save to send their children away to be educated in cheap, ill-equipped academies than day schools.
There they may spend as much time being supervised by older children as teachers.
Anne O'Mahoney, country director of aid agency Concern, which runs education programmes in primary schools, said rising food prices were putting added strains on family life.
At the same time, she said, more needed to be done to build links between populations and their local schools.
"Some of this is linked to the way the secondary system is structured and the emphasis on boarding schools. People are travelling all across the country and that creates a disconnect between communities and their schools," she said.
"Communities have no sense of ownership over their schools and this is something that needs to be improved."
In short, the problems are big. Poverty, inequality and ethnic divisions exposed in the post-election violence will need solutions that cut across the whole of society.
For now, the Kenyan government has some breathing space: the school holidays that start this weekend.
But Mr Ouko warned that without a proper review of classroom conditions there would be more trouble ahead.
"We are crossing our fingers that they don't come back in September even more highly charged," he said.