PCEA Kambala Girls' Secondary School, Molo, was closed indefinitely on Thursday, October 21 after some students allegedly spent the night in the cemetery on October 20.
According to reports, the students had fled into the bushes after staging a strike in the school on Wednesday. Amid the protest, the students allegedly brought down a section of the brick-wall fence before fleeing.
Agitated parents, who got wind of the matter, arrived at the school on Thursday in the company of their daughters, who had fled the previous day.
Majority of the students had marks to remind them of the night they spent out in the unforgiving cold. A number of them had sustained injuries from the stampede, while others were bruised by the thickets they ran into.
"Some of them came here with legs that seemed broken. Others came back with their clothes tattered and had to be given clothes to wear," Joseph Maina, a parent, told the media.
"She came back home with her uniform filled with dirt. She did not speak much and only told me to relax," another parent stated.
The parents demanded answers from the school administration on what exactly caused their children to leave the school in the wee hours of the night. However, the headteacher declined to meet them.
Maina claimed that the students went on strike due to several reasons, among them, a prolonged water shortage and an issue with the meals provided by the school. He further stated that there were more underlying issues yet to be established.
"The students hinted that they have stayed four days without water, without showering," he reiterated.
County education officers, accompanied by the police, made their way to the institution and held an emergency meeting with the school's administration. A decision was reached to close the school.
On October 12, the Ministry of Education directed headteachers to engage with students on a personal level, to curb the rising cases of indiscipline in schools. Permanent Secretary, Julius Jwan, urged school heads to listen to students, outline their concerns and find lasting solutions for each grievance raised.
In 2016, three students from Kambala Girls' had been charged with arson after they set fire to one of the school's dormitories, damaging property worth Ksh3 million.
