Alliance High School bullies charged with assault

Six Alliance Boys High School students were on Friday, March 3 arraigned in court and charged with assault.

The six Form 4 students are accused that on February 17, 2017 at Alliance Boys High School in Kiambu County with others not before court, unlawfully assaulted Shadrack Nzuki, a form one student, thereby occasioning him bodily.

According to age assessment report presented before the court, five of the accused persons are underage – 17 years while the sixth one is aged 18 years.

Kikuyu Resident Magistrate, Daniel Musyoka, released them on a cash bail of Ksh 20,000 or an alternative bond of Ksh 50,000.

The five underage students will now be remanded at Kiambu Children’s Home after pleading not guilty to the assault charges over recently reported cases of student bullying at the school.

A sixth student from the prestigious boys’ school aged above 18 will be taken to an adult remand prison as he awaits processing of his bail and bond terms after he also denied the assault charges.

If found guilty, the 18 year old student faces a maximum five years in jail for assault while the remaining, being minors, may be subjected to probation as the Children’s Act forbids corporal punishment for child offenders.

The rot at Alliance was laid bare by a report by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) alongside the Ministry of Education officers that revealed that bullying was an ingrained culture in the school with the key perpetrators being prefects and house committees with the connivance of teachers.

The report further showed that the bullying is carried out during what the students termed as “action nights” and “induction sessions” what they said was in the full knowledge of the administration.

The report added that the School’s administration had been informed on the matter but remained lenient.

Details of the bullying were sourced from face-to-face interviews with students, guidance and counseling staff, the boarding master, principal and his deputies and students also filled questionnaires.

Further in the report, students opened up to the investigators about being beaten up with sticks and electricity cables, slapped and forced to lie on the graves of the school’s founders for hours with one of the students having to use crutches due to the injuries sustained.

Alliance High school which has for years been dominant in National examinations now shows that beneath the glitz of its academic success seem to be nasty and rampant bullying by senior students largely targeting form one students something that the school has managed to hide from the public until now.

The report has since raised issues of head teachers staying too long in one station as a contributing factor and prefects being too much power.

In a quick rejoinder, Education Cabinet Secretary Dr Fred Matiang’i directed Principals to probe and take relevant action on bullying in high schools.

Additional reporting by Dzuya Walter