Imagine your son or daughter spending part of the little pocket money to service a private car just outside the school compound that they use to source drugs they use in the school. Or your child being part of a small cartel within the school compound that network with outsiders to sneak drugs through a makeshift store along the institution’s fence.
Or worse, finding out that the favourite teacher whom students freely associate with is part of the drug peddling chain which distributes drugs that spoil your child.
These shocking revelations of drug peddling tricks in schools emerged yesterday during a week-long meeting of principals of Catholic-sponsored schools. The 1,300 principals, meeting at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, were shocked to learn that some of the most trusted staff or best performing students may be part of the team flooding schools with drugs. A personal confession of a retired secondary school principal, exposed the extent students and rogue teachers go to sneak drugs in schools.
Former Moi Forces Academy principal Peter Warui said throughout his teaching career, he came across shocking tricks that would guide school heads in the fight against drugs use. Mr Warui said in one of cases, students hired a private car complete with a driver that would be spotted outside the school compound. He said Form Four students contributed money to service the car and pay the driver whom they used to source drugs and deliver to the students. “We came to learn much later that the students were aware of the car and was handed down to the next Form four class,” said Warui.
The former principal said the school management learnt of the existence of the car after he was contacted about an accident the car was involved in. “Someone told me that a car belonging to my school was involved in an accident. I said that all our cars were okay. But on further investigations it emerged that outside the school, it was public knowledge that it was a school car,” he said. A recent Ministry of Education report on school fires attributed the unrest in schools to drugs use by students. Speaking during the meeting, President Uhuru Kenyatta thanked principals of Catholic- sponsored, saying their institutions had the least cases of fires. The principals were also shocked to learn that during his leadership days in another school, his administration kept a fake teacher who was on terror watch. Warui said the mathematics teacher had forged academic papers and managed to get posted to the school. “It was until a new Form One lot was admitted that one of the students broke the news to me that this was a wanted man back in the village,” he said. He said that on investigations, it emerged that the teacher was on terror list and was using the school as a hideout.
