Primary School From Hell: Excessive Corporal Punishment, Impunity The Order Of The Day (Video).

Some Std 5 girls washing utensils after a teachers' "bash"in school. There are reports of severe caning in the school with some pupils already said to have been hospitalised over the same.

Thiririka Primary School, located within the former East African Bag & Cottage in Juja Sub-County has been scene of mass corporal punishment and acts of impunity among a section of the teaching staff in last few years.

A parent who didn't want to be identified leaked some very chilling information about the goings on in the school adding that parents and pupils have remained helpless in their pursuit for remedy due to the Headteacher’s “connections” with higher authorities.

We managed to obtain a graphic video of a one of the said teachers brutally caning small girls on their backs inside the school’s staffroom. In another audio clip, about some teachers can be heard administering the same to a pupil who, by trying to block the canes from further inflicting the pain is described as ‘kichwa ngumu’ (hard headed) and thus ‘anjiongezea viboko’ (calling for more punishment).

According to our source, this has been the order of the day, with three teachers said to be the most notorious in the administering corporal punishment to pupils, some as young as 10 years.

Pupils we talked to narrated to us how four teachers, who included the Headteacher Mrs. Naomi W. Kariuki usually beat them.

They alleged that one of these teachers had the habit of canning them and later forcing them to crawling on their buttocks from the staffroom to their classrooms without considering the physical conditions of especially the girls.

“We are forced to crawl on your buttocks as you sing ‘Tembea na Yesu’ (walk with Jesus) without considering if you are in your periods. If you do not crawl, she calls you back and beaten again. We are also forced to spend the whole day washing trees until they shine,” explained one of the girls.

Early this year, the teachers are said to have punished all STD 8 pupils who had ‘tuition fees’ arrears for both this year and last year, all this with the blessing of the Headteacher. They were also caned for not bringing money to buy a padlock for their classroom.

One of them is said to have been reported to the police sometimes last year for breaking a kid’s arm while canning him but the matter was swept under the carpet when the Headteacher intervened.

“The Headteacher asked the teachers to contribute money to cater for his hospital bill and to ‘silence’ his parents. That matter ended without any action,” said our sources.

We are also made to understand that the Headteacher is so well connected that efforts to report her to the higher authorities bear no fruits.

“Recently she demanded sh. 240 from Class 7 and 8 for exams. Other classes pay sh. 80. STD were also asked to add sh. 100 to assist her in processing their KCPE registration. Last year’s candidates were also demanded to pay sh. 200 while picking their results, claiming to be the cost for their processing. We cannot take her anywhere because it seems that the D.E.O. protects her,” said a parent.

Last year, the government banned schools from charging students tuition fees or any other monies not stipulated with the law.

The Kenyan government banned corporal punishment in Kenyan schools in 2001 and enacted the Children's Act (Government of Kenya, 2001) which entitled children to protection from all forms of abuse and violence.

Kenya is also a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1990) which states that discipline involving violence is unacceptable.