Boarding school should build children, not break them

A recent discussion on social media took me back to my days in boarding school. A Twitter user had asked Kenyans to detail their experiences in boarding school and what followed was a torrent of raw emotions from hurt teenagers who have since transitioned to damaged adults.

There were stories on how for some, visiting days, parents’ days and all those other functions that required parents to show up were a nightmare

There were children who were never visited by their parents in school, then there were those who depended on the goodwill of their kinder friends to have a meal on those special days. 

The most heartbreaking story was one of a boy who waited for his mother in vain, only to learn that while he was waiting she was breathing her last.

There were happy stories, too, which I relate to. Stories of parents, like mine, who never missed a single visiting day or failed to show up with “hotpots” overflowing with stew, chapati and nyama choma.

But this article is not about visiting days. It is about the horror that is Kenyan boarding schools, and how as a country we seem to have accepted it. 

Ideally, boarding schools are supposed to foster a spirit of independence, self-reliance and responsibility in a student. 

It is like this: you are on your own, in charge of your time, and your success is largely in your own hands. 

Some might say that boarding school is good for character building. It toughens you and makes you grow up. 

But nothing could be further from the truth. The typical boarding school is nothing short of a little hell. 

The moment an innocent 14-year-old boy or girl is admitted to a boarding secondary school, they are ushered into a completely different world. 

The first week of boarding school, which I assume will be for thousands of children next week, is usually a week of tears, shock and, in some cases, bullying or what is called “hazing”.

The Form One students are suddenly at the mercy of ill-mannered, menacing colleagues. They will experience overwhelming homesickness that will lead them to beg their parents to pick them up the next week. 

It is also during the first half of the first term that the typical Form One will have nearly every personal item stolen, in what is usually an acceptable induction into the high school life.

 But this is just the beginning. What lies ahead is often a long and weary journey characterised by untold challenges that leave these youngsters nursing trauma for life. It is in high school that the social classes crystallise and often the divide between the haves and have-nots becomes apparent. 

The inequalities are magnified on occasions such as visiting days, when you have students experiencing both sides of the spectrum; the privileged with every luxury to show for it, and the not-so-privileged who dread these days. 

However, it is not these social divisions that make boarding school unbearable. It is the utter difficulty of life, the near-military culture, that looking back, you realise how unnecessary some of those traditions were. 

The teacher’s word was the law and the school prefects operated little tyrannies unquestioned. The school principals played God and they were feared and revered in equal measure by parents, students and teachers.

The toxic environment ensured students were put through severe, meaningless punishments such as spending entire days tilling the land or slashing grass — punishments that did nothing to improve behaviour, except to augment rebellion among teenagers.

As a million students report to Form One this coming week, I think this is a good time to think critically about the kind of environment we are sending them to, and why we are all so comfortable with the environments that are Kenyan boarding schools.

I know character building is key in a teenager’s life. But the typical Kenyan boarding secondary school is not it. At least not in the current state. 

Ms Chege is the director of the Innovation Centre at the Aga Khan University’s Graduate School of Media and Communications. ​