A blaze tore through a primary school dormitory in central Kenya overnight, killing 16 children and reigniting a furious debate about safety standards in the country's education system. The cause of the fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri county remains unknown, but the tragedy has exposed a pattern of regulatory failures that leaves hundreds of thousands of pupils vulnerable.
Emergency services arrived at the scene in the early hours to find the dormitory engulfed, with many children trapped inside. The death toll is expected to rise as rescue teams comb through the wreckage. Witnesses described scenes of chaos as parents rushed to the school, desperate for news.
This is not an isolated incident. In 2017, a fire at a school in Nairobi killed 10 pupils. Three years earlier, a dormitory fire at a primary school in Homa Bay claimed seven lives. Each time, promises of reform were made. Each time, they were broken.
The underlying issue is a toxic mix of overcrowding, poor infrastructure, and lax enforcement. Many schools, particularly in rural areas, operate with minimal oversight. Dormitories are often makeshift structures with inadequate fire escapes, smoke detectors, and extinguishers. Teachers, many underpaid and undertrained, lack basic fire safety knowledge.
But there is a deeper political dimension. Education is a devolved function under Kenya's 2010 constitution, split between national and county governments. This has led to a blame game: the national government points to counties for failing to inspect schools, while counties accuse Nairobi of not providing sufficient funds. The result is a regulatory vacuum.
President William Ruto's administration has been under pressure to address systemic failures. His government promised a comprehensive school safety audit after the 2017 tragedy. It never happened. Now, with an election looming, the political calculus has shifted. Expect urgent statements, a crisis meeting of the Cabinet, and perhaps a few sackings. But the structural problems will remain.
The opposition has seized on the tragedy. Raila Odinga's coalition is calling for a parliamentary inquiry and demanding that Education Minister Ezekiel Machogu resign. Machogu, a Ruto loyalist, is likely to survive a no-confidence vote, but his position is weakened.
In the corridors of power, the real battle is over funding. The Treasury has resisted calls for a massive injection of cash into school infrastructure, citing fiscal constraints. But with 16 dead children, that argument becomes harder to sustain. The question is whether the government will use this tragedy as a catalyst for change or simply as another chapter in a cycle of grief and inaction.
For now, the focus is on the bereaved families. But in Westminster, or rather in Nairobi's version of it, the political knives are being sharpened. This story is far from over.
