Sunshine Secondary School A distressed parent has raised an alarm over a video clip that surfaced on social media, which supposedly shows an incident of corporal punishment at Sunshine Secondary School in Nairobi.
Writing to this blog on Saturday, 18 June, the enraged guardian openly acknowledged a bitterly hostile environment at the private boys’ boarding school situated in Lang’ata constituency and opposed what she terms as excessive flogging of students.
According to the source, the terrified boy in the circulating footage is in Form 3U.
Shockingly, this is apparently the norm at the formerly leading Christian institution where the Moi family ownership has granted teachers the green light to terrorize people’s sons and daughters.
The most notorious is Deputy Headteacher Mr Mulonzi who reportedly encourages teachers to whip them like donkeys.
The source also informed this author that many parents have previously tried to speak out against the unreasonably crude methods of retribution, but most cases end up stalling thanks to the administration’s influence in government.
This leaves many with no option but to transfer their children to other schools where there is respect for the law. “Hi, Nyakundi, I saw this video doing rounds on social media. I personally have a son at Sunshine Secondary School and it is sad. The correct information is that the Student is in Form 3U. Corporal punishment in Sunshine is rampant with teachers beating up the boys like donkeys. The Deputy Headteacher Mr Mulonzi leads in this. He does not listen to the boys and pushes the teachers to whip them mercilessly. Since the school belongs to the influential Moi family, there is very little the government can do. Hence the impunity,” the parent writes. The Kenyan government banned corporal punishment in Kenyan schools in 2001 and enacted the Children’s Act, which entitles children to protection from all forms of abuse and violence.
Kenya is also a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1990) which states that discipline involving violence is unacceptable.
Despite this, the use of corporal punishment continues in Kenyan schools.