Dear Learners,
Before you complain about your school, pause for a moment and ask yourself a simple question: Who benefits when a classroom is burned, a laboratory is destroyed, or a dormitory goes up in flames?
The answer is painfully obvious—no one.
Not the learner who needs a desk to study. Not the candidate preparing for practical examinations. Not the parent struggling to pay school fees. Not the teacher committed to helping students succeed. Not even the learner who participates in the destruction.
In the end, everybody loses.
This is why I write this open letter to you—not to condemn, lecture, or accuse, but to invite you to reflect on your future, your responsibilities, and the power you possess to shape your destiny.
Learning requires sacrifice. Every worthwhile achievement in life demands effort, discipline, commitment, patience, and perseverance. The world celebrates success but rarely sees the sacrifices behind it. Every successful person you admire paid a price to reach where they are today. Behind every achievement are countless hours of hard work, moments of disappointment, and decisions to keep moving forward when giving up seemed easier.
As a learner, you are preparing for a future that will arrive much sooner than you imagine. The school years may seem long now, but they pass quickly. Before long, you will be expected to stand on your own feet, make your own decisions, solve your own problems, and take responsibility for your own life.
No one can live your life for you.
Your parents can advise you. Your teachers can guide you. Your guardians can support you. But they cannot sit examinations for you. They cannot attend lessons for you. They cannot build your future for you.
ALSO READ:
MP Masara leads school safety push as fire prevention measures intensify in Suna West
That responsibility belongs to you alone.
The quality of your future will largely depend on the quality of the decisions you make today. Discipline is not punishment. It is preparation. Rules are not barriers. They are guideposts. Correction is not hatred. It is often a sign that someone cares enough to prevent you from making costly mistakes.
The learner who understands this truth gains a tremendous advantage in life.
At the same time, it is important to appreciate the sacrifices that have made your education possible. Look around you. Every classroom, desk, laboratory, library, dormitory, water tank, dining hall, and school bus exists because somebody sacrificed.
Governments allocated resources. Communities contributed. Parents paid fees. Teachers dedicated their careers. Generations before you invested in facilities they knew they might never personally use.
They built them for you.
Yet those facilities do not belong to you alone. They belong to generations of learners. They served students before you arrived, they serve you today, and they are meant to serve others long after you leave.
That is why destruction is such a painful contradiction.
When a learner burns a dormitory, where will students sleep after long hours of study? When a laboratory is destroyed, where will practical lessons be conducted? Where will candidates sit their practical examinations? When classrooms are damaged, where will learning take place? When school property is vandalized, whose future is being protected?
Certainly not yours.
Across the world, schools and institutions have faced disagreements, frustrations, and moments of tension. Yet the most successful institutions are not those that never experience conflict. They are those that have learned how to resolve conflict through dialogue.
ALSO READ:
How school heads suffer in silence over unsustainable culture of unregulated levies
History repeatedly teaches us that talking works.
When communities have disagreed, they have talked. When families have experienced conflict, they have talked. When nations have stood on the brink of disaster, they have eventually sat down and talked. Even some of the most difficult conflicts in human history have moved toward resolution only after people chose conversation over confrontation.
The late understood this truth well. After spending twenty-seven years in prison, he emerged not with a message of revenge but with a message of reconciliation and dialogue. He demonstrated to the world that lasting solutions are rarely found through destruction. They are found when people listen, engage, negotiate, and seek common ground.
The same principle applies in schools.
A school is not a battlefield. It is a community of learners, teachers, support staff, parents, and leaders working toward a common goal. Whenever challenges arise, communication provides a pathway to understanding. Whenever grievances emerge, dialogue creates an opportunity for solutions. Whenever tensions develop, constructive engagement offers hope.
Talking works because it allows people to understand one another.
Agreement works because it transforms conflict into cooperation.
Violence and destruction may attract attention for a moment, but they rarely solve the underlying problem. More often, they create deeper wounds, greater losses, and additional hardships for the very people they claim to represent.
Dialogue creates opportunities.
It creates understanding where there was confusion.
It creates trust where there was suspicion.
It creates solutions where there was conflict.
It creates hope where there was frustration.
Most importantly, it creates progress.
The ability to listen, negotiate, persuade, compromise, and agree is not merely a school skill. It is a leadership skill. The learner who masters communication today becomes the leader who resolves conflicts tomorrow. The student who learns to engage respectfully becomes the professional who earns trust in the workplace. The young person who values dialogue becomes the citizen who strengthens society.
ALSO READ:
Understanding how unified comprehensive school system will work from July this year
That is the true purpose of education—not merely to pass examinations, but to prepare responsible men and women capable of solving problems without destroying opportunities.
As you pursue your studies, remember that your greatest competition is not your teacher, your principal, or your school. Your greatest challenge is becoming the best version of yourself. Every day presents an opportunity to move closer to that goal or further away from it.
Choose discipline because it builds character.
Choose responsibility because it builds trust.
Choose hard work because it builds competence.
Choose respect because it builds relationships.
Choose dialogue because it builds solutions.
Choose agreement because it builds peace.
Choose education because it builds the future.
One day, you will leave your school. The buildings will remain. The laboratories will remain. The dormitories will remain. New learners will walk through the same gates, sit in the same classrooms, and dream the same dreams you dream today.
The question is: What legacy will you leave behind?
Will future learners inherit opportunities because you protected them, or obstacles because you destroyed them?
Years from now, when you become a teacher, doctor, engineer, entrepreneur, farmer, lawyer, parent, or leader, may you be remembered as part of a generation that understood a simple but powerful truth: that no disagreement is too large to be discussed, no conflict too difficult to be negotiated, and no challenge too complex to be approached through dialogue.
Your future is too valuable to be sacrificed on the altar of anger. Your dreams are too precious to be consumed by the flames of destruction. Whenever disagreements arise, choose the courage to speak, the wisdom to listen, and the maturity to seek agreement.
Because the strongest people are not those who destroy.
They are those who build.
They are those who unite.
They are those who solve problems.
And they are those who understand that a conversation can achieve what a fire never will.
Your destiny is in your hands.
Guard it wisely.
By Hillary Muhalya
You can also follow our social media pages on Twitter: Education News KE and Facebook: Education News Newspaper for timely updates.
>>> Click here to stay up-to-date with trending regional stories
>>> Click here to read more informed opinions on the country’s education landscape
