Of course schools have no idea what it would cost to keep their massive lands and buildings clean, because of decades of reliance on the free labour they force out of students. The other thing that nobody wants to admit is that proper institutional cleaning is skilled labour.

It takes skill and effort to keep a massive institution under constant use clean and hygienic enough for all its occupants to use. Deep cleaning classrooms, halls, toilets, bathrooms etc is not just hands and time. You need to know what you are doing and why.

There's a question being asked: "how else will they learn personal responsibility?" My reply: many went through schools that use corporal punishment cleaning to "teach personal responsibility". Are they all outside scrubbing, voluntarily, during free time, in their adult lives?

Additionally: we are the same Kenyans laughing every time there's a rumour of a threat to implement Saturday cleaning in our neighbourhoods once a month. You'd think that all that personal responsibility taught by being forced to clean as minors would prevail. Yet here we are.

Schools ceding the intitutional responsibility of hygiene to their own students is the first sign that any "personal responsibility" they want to teach is a scam. The school itself does not have responsibility over its buildings. How, then, can they teach it to anyone?

Another thought: we have lived through enough ceded responsibility by institutions as Kenyans to see that this is not entirely on the schools. Public schools, especially, have not been getting the budgets they need to run properly, when all funding to them is so politicised.

If parents are told by politicians that they are not supposed to pay, then the state admits they don't have 100% operational costs requested, you can see the genesis of the scam to use the kids to clean. Branded as punishment or responsibility. Doesn't matter which.

The dysfunction of our schools, especially with the lack of care manifesting in so many ways including this, is a dystopia decades in the making. Viva Gen Z for seeing that nobody else is made to clean whole buildings simultaneously as they are using them, except prisoners.

And that the callous, malicious ways prisoners are treated in this country runs violently counter to all law, policy, data and evidence on how they should actually be treated, as the wards of the state they are. School students: same wozzap.

Update: the failure is multidimensional when minors pause learning to become activists for an enabling environment to learn. Also. The contempt school admin has for their young wards is evident, everywhere from their learning, to their health, extending to their wider welfare.

Everyone who is investing in teaching these kids that having power means contempt for the vulnerable, is in for a VERY rude shock in just a few years when they gain more autonomy. Ehe. These are the people we will want to somehow learn how to be kind from the air.

Also, Gen Z are not like those who came before them. The rest of us still had some fear, some shame, some guilt. Gen Z know that the world is ending and they don't mind hurrying the end times along. So they're not going to stand for disrespect just like that.

The rest of us could be cajoled into acting like we have contrition, respect, etc. Gen Z have 👏🏾 no 👏🏾 time 👏🏾. They have things to do, especially considering now that passing exams doesn't mean what they were promised it did, jobs are not forever, etc etc.

The way power flows in Africa is really going to have to be rethought. Gen Z are a LARGE population in Africa. Average ages, a sampler: - Kenya 🇰🇪 20.1 yrs - Nigeria 🇳🇬 18.1 yrs - Tanzania 🇹🇿 18.0 yrs - Zim 🇿🇼 18.7 yrs - B Faso 🇧🇫 17.6 yrs - Som 🇸🇴 16.7 yrs

This key demographic is being treated badly, being fed ashes in the name of empty flag nationalism, being fueled with the nonsense of false promises. They have literally nothing to lose. When they are asked, they will say their schools and governments that radicalised them.

These kids grew up asked to shush when their classmates are raped, watching open disrespect of their teachers by the state, and learning that a school on fire changes nothing. Gen Z won't "burn everything down". They've already seen there is little worth saving or holding on to.

To those saying "so now do you want us to pay our kids to work in their own homes" Honestly. How is that a response to this 😂 By all means raise your children how you want. But remain aware that just because a method worked on you, doesn't mean it will work on your offspring.

Some folks saying "my child will do manual labour at home" Power to you. Nobody is talking about avoiding chores (ideally gender neutral), or learning, or age appropriate help at tasks (different from child labour) etc. The inability to see that there is a line is the issue.

One of the biggest gifts Gen Z are giving those older than them, globally, is the insight that some of the shit that happened to us was not 'normal'. That it was actually harm, and/or abuse, and that it shouldn't have happened. Coming to terms with that is going to be tough AF.

UPDATE: Please read @yvonnewabai 's VERY insightful thread. It is about how punishment is designed in Kenyan boarding schools. She also reflects at length about its notably vicious and cruel historical parallels. 😶