The argument that school fires and unrest are cries for help sounds compassionate, but compassion without accountability can become a dangerous form of denial.
Yes, students face pressure. Yes, mental health matters. Yes, schools must listen more. But if every act of destruction is interpreted as a message rather than a choice, we risk excusing behaviour that places lives at risk.
The recent unrest in secondary schools was not merely a collection of misunderstood emotions. In many cases, students planned, coordinated, and executed acts that endangered fellow learners, destroyed property worth millions of shillings, and disrupted the education of innocent classmates.
These were not silent cries for help. They were deliberate actions with foreseeable consequences.
The question of responsibility
The question we should be asking is not only, “What are students trying to say?” but also, “Why are some students increasingly unwilling to accept responsibility for their actions?”
Previous generations also faced hardship. They dealt with poverty, family struggles, academic pressure, and uncertainty about the future.
Yet widespread destruction of school property was not normalized as a means of communication.
What has changed is not simply the level of pressure. What has changed is society’s willingness to enforce boundaries and consequences.
When students reject available channels
There is also a troubling assumption that students who engage in unrest do so because they feel unheard.
But many school disturbances occur in institutions with student councils, guidance departments, suggestion boxes, and open forums.
The existence of these channels does not guarantee that every demand will be met.
Sometimes unrest occurs not because students have no voice, but because they dislike the answer they receive.
Schools are educational institutions, not democracies where every decision is negotiable.
Rules regarding examinations, reporting times, discipline, and safety exist because adults have a duty to provide order and structure.
When every enforcement of authority is viewed as oppression, discipline itself becomes suspect.
Mental health is not a blanket explanation
Mental health support is important, but it should not become a catch-all explanation for criminal or dangerous conduct.
Setting a dormitory on fire is not a mental health strategy.
Destroying property is not student engagement.
Intimidating teachers is not self-expression.
Such actions must be condemned clearly and unequivocally.
The role of entitlement and peer pressure
The uncomfortable truth is that some unrest is driven not by trauma but by entitlement, peer pressure, thrill-seeking, resistance to rules, and a growing culture that questions authority while demanding fewer responsibilities.
Ignoring these factors produces an incomplete diagnosis and, therefore, ineffective solutions.
What children need is not merely to be heard.
They also need to be guided.
They need adults who listen, certainly, but also adults who set firm limits.
They need compassion, but they also need consequences.
They need counselling, but they also need character formation.
Striking the right balance
A school cannot function on empathy alone.
It requires order, responsibility, respect, and accountability.
The fire does not start with the match.
But neither does it start only with pain.
Sometimes it starts with a decision—a wrong decision—that someone believed they could make without consequences.
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And if we are serious about ending school unrest, we must have the courage to talk about both.
By Angel Raphael
Angel Raphael is an experienced Kenyan educator and trainer passionate about guiding learners to thrive academically and personally.
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