Kilgoris boys high school in Narok County was closed indefinitely on Monday, July 24, 2023, after students set ablaze a dormitory, dining hall and a class.
According to the school principal Phillip Lipaso, ten students are currently in police custody on suspension for carrying out the arson.
Lipaso says the students allegedly set the facilities on fire following a water shortage in the school due to a faulty electricity transformer.
“We had a shortage of water in the school and we were in communications with Kenya Power to replace the transformer since we use electricity to pump water. However, at around 8:40 pm, some boys started shouting and making noise,” Lipaso noted.
Shortly after calming the situation, at 9:30 pm, the boys again started shouting and at that time, one class had been razed down.
“We and other staff and security officials who intervened used the hand fire extinguishers to stop the fire since there was no water, and we managed to put off the fires,” the principal added.
The principal said the students later woke up in the wee hours of Monday and set one dormitory ablaze bringing the total damage for the school at around Ksh3 million.
“Although we have sent all the students home until further notice, we appeal to them not to take the law into their own hands and instead learn to dialogue through the school management,” the Principal noted.
The school had experienced a similar incident in 2020.
The decision to close down the school came after members of the school Board of Management held an impromptu meeting following revelations by some students that their colleagues wanted to burn the school.
As of this writing, neither the area police boss Hussein Wario nor the deputy police commander had issued a statement on the incident.
