Let me say this plainly so no one misses it. A student strike is not a security issue. You cannot solve it with more guards, more gates, or more cameras. A strike is a discipline breakdown. It is a failure of values. It is a collapse of the respect, patience, and self-control that parents and teachers are supposed to instill in children.
Until we name the problem correctly, we will keep applying the wrong solutions.
Yet here is what I see happening across our country. A school goes on strike. Desks are broken. Property is destroyed. Sometimes a fire starts. And what is the immediate response? Schools rush to install CCTV cameras. Administrators point to the screens and say, “Now we will catch the culprits.” The Ministry of Education issues circulars about tighter security.
Everyone behaves as if the problem is about surveillance, as if the only thing missing was a pair of eyes recording the chaos.
Why cameras are not the solution
This is a dangerous misunderstanding. CCTV cameras have a place, a very small one.
After an accident, after a fire, or after a violent outburst, a recording can provide evidence. It can help identify who threw the punch or lit the match. That is useful for punishment. But punishment comes after the damage.
It does not prevent the strike. It does not uproot the indiscipline. A camera watching a child break a window does nothing to stop that child from wanting to break the window in the first place.
The truth is that a strike is a symptom. It is a loud, messy, sometimes violent signal that somewhere along the line, discipline broke down.
The roots of indiscipline
That breakdown happens long before the first desk is flipped. It happens in small moments. A parent who does not say no. A teacher who humiliates instead of corrects. A home where respect is never modelled. A school where rules exist but values do not.
These are the roots of indiscipline. And no camera lens has ever reached a root.
So let me speak directly to the Ministry of Education, school boards, parents, and teachers. There is so much more you can do to uproot the indiscipline that is happening. But you must stop reaching for technological fixes and start doing the hard, slow work of building character.
That work begins with two simple things: instilling values and learning to listen.
Discipline is taught, not surveilled
First, discipline is taught, not surveilled. A child who learns honesty at home will not need a camera to remind them not to steal. A child who learns respect in the classroom will not need a guard to remind them not to shout down a teacher.
Values are caught, not enforced.
Parents must partner with teachers to model patience, accountability, and empathy every single day. If a child sees an adult solve problems with shouting and violence, that child will strike. If a child sees an adult listen, apologise, and correct calmly, that child will learn to do the same.
The importance of listening
Second, we must walk a genuine journey with these children. That means listening more than we lecture.
Too many children today are carrying heavy burdens: broken homes, social media cruelty, academic pressure, and a sense of hopelessness. They do not strike because they are evil. They strike because they have no other language for their pain.
A student who feels heard by a parent or a teacher is a student who will rarely need to scream through a walkout.
But listening must come without immediate judgment. No interruptions. No threats. Just a patient adult asking, “What is really going on with you?”
Character before punishment
I know this work is harder than installing cameras. It is slower. It does not produce a neat before-and-after photo for a ministry report. But it is the only thing that actually works.
A child who has internalised discipline, who has learned to pause before acting, and who has an adult they trust to talk to, will not join a strike. That child will not light a fire. That child will speak up and speak out, but peacefully and with respect.
None of this is to excuse violent misconduct. Students who destroy property or cause harm must face consequences. Discipline without accountability is not discipline at all.
But consequences without connection are just revenge. And revenge has never reformed a child’s character.
The goal is not to punish after the strike. The goal is to raise children who do not want to strike in the first place.
Walking the journey together
So, by all means, keep the cameras for evidence after an incident. But do not mistake them for a solution.
The solution is older, harder, and more beautiful than that. It is a parent sitting down with a child every evening. It is a teacher pulling a struggling student aside with curiosity instead of anger. It is a Ministry that funds counselling and values education instead of only buying lenses.
It is all of us adults admitting that indiscipline in our schools is not a security failure. It is our failure.
And we must fix it not with more watching, but with more walking—walking the journey with these children, listening to them, teaching them, and loving them enough to correct them well.
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Because a child who is truly disciplined, from the inside out, has no need to strike.
And that is a truth no camera will ever capture.
By Joyce Koki
Joyce Koki is an educationist, a children’s mentor, and the founder of Joybridge Education Consultancy, which focuses on bridging the gap between discipline and emotional well-being in Kenyan schools.
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