By Gilbert Kobi
Wednesday January 13 was like any other day in Kisii School, a national institution with 2,000 students.
And, as it sometimes happens in any school, one student was late for the morning classes.
The teacher who was in charge of the class asked the Form Three learner why he was late.
Little did the teacher, Edwin Mokaya, know that this question would set off a series of extraordinary events that would land him in hospital and put the school in the news for the wrong reasons.
Instead of explaining his lateness, the student reportedly lunged at the teacher with a knife, leaving him with serious cuts. His colleague, Elvis Maoto, who tried to rescue him, was also injured by the irate student.
The two were treated at Ram Hospital, with Mokaya undergoing surgery. Maoto was treated and discharged, according to the hospital’s administrator Enock Abobo.
The student was arrested and questioned by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officers and later charged before Senior Magistrate Steve Onjoro.
He denied the charges and, through his lawyer Ben Gichana, claimed the teachers had attacked each other. He was released on a bond of Sh100,000.
The incident shocked not just the residents of Kisii County but the entire country.
Speaking to Education News, the director of Gusii Governance Watch Rael Otundo said teachers should be extra careful when handling the learners who have been away from school for nine months.
“It’s disheartening that our children have decided to go on the rampage at the slightest provocation,” said Otundo.
Embassy Chapel pastor Peter Morwabe blamed the incident on, among other things, neglect of the boy child.
“Things are going out of hand for the boy child considering what we have been experiencing recently,” he said, adding that the situation was a ticking time bomb.
“It is clear we have been concentrating on the girl child and forgetting the boys and we are now dealing with the consequences,” he said.
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