Who is burning schools?
Nov 01, 2012
Within just three days, Kawempe Muslim Secondary School, which has been indefinitely closed, caught fire twice, evoking memories of past fire tragedies that have not only led to deaths, but also massive loss of property and at times affected candidate classes.
By Charles Etukuri and Norah Mutesi
Within just three days, Kawempe Muslim Secondary School, which has been indefinitely closed, caught fire twice, evoking memories of past fire tragedies that have not only led to deaths, but also massive loss of property and at times affected candidate classes.
The first fire at Kawempe Muslim occurred on Sunday October 14 and the second on Wednesday October 17. In the first case, it is suspected that an arsonist struck as the students were away for night prep.
Students heard screams from their fellow students and when they came out of the class, they were greeted by smoke wafting through the roof of their dormitory.
As students and parents come to terms with the loss of property worth billions, the school administration hurriedly put the blame on the students they had suspended a week earlier, but it is emerging that the fire could have been prevented had the school administration responded quickly to threats earlier, Sunday Vision can exclusively report.
Dr. Abdallah Mutazindwa, the director in charge of education standards at the education ministry, also confirmed this.
“If the school had adhered to the set guidelines by the ministry, that incident would never have occurred,” Mutazindwa says.
According to the school’s headmaster, Badru Mugerwa, the students were expelled after a strike by S5 students, who complained about poor feeding and hygiene. Just behind the school kitchen, was a pond with maggots moving about.
As the students protested on Thursday, the school administration singled out those they regarded as ringleaders and suspended them.
Attempted arson
There was an initial attempt to burn the same dormitory a day earlier, but the effort was thwarted by a student who, while going to the bathroom, saw smoke and informed the matron.
The matron found a piece of cloth tied on wood and dipped in paraffin burning. She immediately alerted security who put out the fire.
Why the administration opted to remain silent and not inform the Police, raises more questions than answers. “Why didn’t they even put up safety measures when they knew the students were turning rowdy?” Mutazindwa wonders.
So on Sunday, after the initial attempt was foiled, the arsonists regrouped and waited for their colleagues to go for prep.
One of the students only identified as Sonia, who claimed to be sick, remained in the dormitory on the fateful day.
As the matron went to check on her condition, she smelt paraffin, and when she checked the floor, she discovered that paraffin had been spilt. She again called guards and informed the administration.
The girls were called back to their dormitories, but when asked about the paraffin which the matron had found, they all denied any knowledge. All the school administration did was warn them to be cautious and sent them back to their class.
At around 7:30pm, the fire started. And despite attempts to put it off, it was too late, given that the dormitory was crowded.
Apart from the property, there was no life lost in the incident. On Wednesday, the arsonists struck again, burning the boys’ dormitory while they were in prep.
In the last five years, several innocent students have lost their lives to fire in boarding schools and hostels, raising questions on the safety of students.
Notable fire incidents
The most memorable cases are the 2006 incident in Kabarole Islamic Primary School where 10 children were burnt to death; the 2008 Budo Junior fire where over 15 pupils were burnt, a 2010 incident at an army school in Jinja that left six pupils dead, the 2011 incident at St. Leo’s Junior Academy in Masaka where two dormitories were razed by fire and five pupils died. The schools matron later succumbed to injuries she sustained as she tried to rescue the pupils.
These are some of the fires that have gutted several schools. Despite attempts and promises by the Police that investigations would be carried out to establish the cause of the fires, at times the outcome of the investigations has been shallow. Where recommendations have been made, nothing has been implemented. To date, nobody has been convicted.
No school inspections
The education ministry and the Police are tasked with the responsibility of carrying out inspection to ensure that safety measures are in place.
But, the officials tasked with this job are either too busy or do not understand their mandate.
After each fire incident, the public is often treated to tough talk from the Police, with threats of arrests of the culprits and occasional visits by high-level members of society to give condolences.
However, there is no attempt to get to the bottom of the problem in order to find a lasting solution. Where the ministry has sought to intervene, the measures have not been implemented. And because of the liberalisation of the education sector, school owners continue to disregard government policies on overcrowding and putting in place safety measures.
Following the St. Leos Junior Academy fire incident, the education ministry, together with the Police, promised the nation they would move in all the boarding schools and even banned the triple-decker beds in dormitories. However, today some schools even have four-decker beds.
Every district has an inspector of schools who is, among others, charged with inspecting boarding accommodation. However, most of these do not visit the dormitories and their visits often end at the headmaster’s office. Mutazindwa also puts the blame on the local governments.
“We play a supervisory role as the education ministry. The task is with the local governments. Under the decentralisation policy, the districts are directly in charge of schools within their jurisdiction,” he says.
Mutazindwa adds that triple or quadruple decker beds in school dormitories is a legal issue, since the Public Health Act prohibits anyone from sleeping more than one metre from the ground.
After the St. Leo’s fire, the Police arrested the head teacher and the proprietor. It was evident they had flouted every regulation governing the running of schools.
The children were sleeping in illegal triple-decker beds and could not find their way out through the smoke and the dormitory was also overcrowded. Then there is the state of the dormitories itself. In the Budo Junior fire incident, there was no escape route as the windows had burglar proofing that defeated the rescue efforts.
Kenya takes measures
In neighbouring Kenya, following a fire incident early this month in one of the schools, the education minister, Mutula Kilonzo, signed a law that bars schools from having burglar proofed windows. And it is now compulsory for all schools to have an emergency exit.
Sunday Vision has also learnt that in most of the schools, especially primary and girls’ dormitories, the administrators prefer locking the doors from outside and making the pupils/students appear like caged birds. In most cases, the matrons and custodians go away with the keys.
Some of the schools are blamed for not taking threats seriously and boosting their security. At St. Leos, P6 and P7 dormitories had been burnt one year before, and this should have been a wake-up call for the school administrators. It was the same case with Kawempe Muslim School. There were also no fire extinguishers in place to help put out the fire.
Police reluctant
The Police have consistently failed to prevent some of the fire incidents. Even where they have been informed in time, their response has been poor.
They also have a challenge of manpower and equipment. For instance when a fire started at Merryland High School, the fire truck arrived two hours late and they ran out of water halfway through their attempt to put out the fire.
The deputy Police publicist, Vincent Ssekate, says they are trying to resolve the issue of delayed response by putting fire trucks in each Police division in Kampala.
Way Forward
The chief fire officer, John Mugisha, says every school should carry out fire drills and this should be held regularly. “A fire drill takes people through the process of leaving the building,” explains Mugisha.
“Fire drills are an important part of fire safety procedures for many reasons. Not only do they ensure that all students, staff and even visitors to the premises understand what they need to do if there is a fire, but they also help you to test how effective your fire evacuation plan is and to improve certain aspects,” he adds.
He also says the schools should install fire-fighting equipment like fire alarms, to prepare pupils and staff in the event of fire outbreak.
Mugisha also calls for regular inspection by the education ministry and an enabling law to make sure that all schools have fire extinguishers, fire blankets and horse reels, among others. He also urges the staff and students to report people acting suspiciously.
Mugisha further urges the education ministry to incorporate fire safety procedures in the national curriculum, so that pupils and students are equipped on how to respond to fire outbreak.
The Government, of course, can set tough penalties for schools found to have breached operational regulations. Some of the stern actions that should be taken include suspending the license of some of the schools and enforcing criminal prosecution for the school owners.
The Government can also subsidise the price of fire-fighting equipment to enable many schools acquire them.
But the overall responsibility lies with the parents who should ensure that they entrust their children in safe hands.
The Police also warn that there could be more fire outbreaks in the near future
Parents Should be Alert
Sunday Vision has learnt that most of the school fires are usually started by aggrieved students, who have either been expelled or suspended.
In Manjasi High School in Tororo, the preferred revenge an expelled student had against the school administration was burning the headmaster’s office.
However, many other fires have been accidental or as a result of arson by outsiders due to possible rivalries.
A Police detective who spoke to Sunday Vision could not rule out mobile phones as a cause of fire. “Some of the students smuggle phones into the dormitories and charge them under their mattresses. So at times they do it directly and when it sparks, the mattresses catch fire,” he said.
Load shedding is also cited as one of the key causes of fires. In Kabarole Islamic Primary School, for instance, the immediate cause of the fire was identified as a paraffin lamp lit when power was off, although, bizarrely, the chief of Police blamed the Allied Democratic Front rebels.
Sources say some students also cook at school using stoves and electrified tins popularly known as ‘suicide’ for boiling water. This, Mutazindwa explains, could explain some of the fires.
Most parents find the boarding section more convenient, but a few take the responsibility of checking the state of accommodation their children are going to use.
“As parents, do we really have to wait for an inspector of schools to visit the dormitories and check for the safety precautions?” asks Mutazindwa.
“When a school blocks you from visiting the dormitory, then you know something is wrong and immediately report them to us,” he adds.