Kisumu National Polytechnic has been closed indefinitely after a whole week of unrest with students demanding that their grievances over fee hike be addressed.
Over 1,600 students at the polytechnic were on Friday sent home indefinitely following a week of run-ins with security personnel after they boycotted classes since Monday, September 15.
The students have accused the polytechnic authorities of hiking school fees without any prior consultations with them or their parents and guardians.
“This is going to put an extra burden on our parents and guardians who are already struggling to pay our fees in these hard economic times,” they said.
But in a sharp rejoinder, the Chief Principal of the Polytechnic Catherine Kelonye has vehemently denied claims of fee hike, saying all decisions at the institution are only made in consultation with all stakeholders.
The students had resorted to barricading the roads passing near the institution where they engaged the police in running battles while pelting stones to the passing vehicles.
In a memo, Ms Kelonye who is the secretary to the polytechnic council, said it had become untenable to keep the students at the institution following the unrest which had disrupted a peaceful leaning environment.
“We are looking at all the issues raised by the students’ leadership and we will resolve them soon so that normal learning resume at the polytechnic,” the memo said in part.
Learning institutions in Kenya have been for a long time faced with unrest, disrupting learning programmes at the affected insttituions, all the way up to Universities.
The most prevalent causes of strikes and unrests among secondary school students and other institutions of learning are; lack of student participation in decision making, lack of dialogue between authorities and students, too much powers vested on prefects, lack of democratic system in the insttituions and drug abuse among students.
Experts also say that the cause of school unrest is academic pressure, particularly surrounding national examinations. It is the sole reason why many of these strikes occur during the second term, usually around mock examinations and lately, even during the third term!
Currently the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) which bring together lecturers and other academic staff from the over 40 public universities in the country has commenced a strike which has paralysed learning in those public institutions
In a strike which commenced on Wednesday September 17, this week UASU is demanding over Sh11.5 billion in arrears, stemming from Collective Bargain Agreements (CBAs) that the Government has not implemented. The pending amounts include arrears from the 2021-2025 Phase Two CBA arrears amounting to Sh2.73 billion which is due this financial year and Sh8,8billion pending as from the 2017 to 2021 CBA.
However, on Friday, the Employment and Labour Relations Court issued an order halting the strike to allow for a lawfully mandated conciliation process, an order UASU has vowed to disregard.
by Mabel Keya Shikuku
