The yellow school buses dotting our roads daily have become one of the MOST notable symbols of education in in Kenya.
However, behind the shiny paintworks, tinted windows and in some cases customised interiors lies troubling reality: many of these buses are not serving the students and staff they were meant to but political activities by political players.
It’s sad because schools are investing billions of shillings in purchases of these buses through costly hire-purchase agreements, often justified as essential tools for learning and co-curricular activities.
Some schools don’t even have access roads to school for these buses. A good example is Olik Oliero secondary school that bought their brand new bus recently but it had to be towed by a tractor to navigate the muddy road to the school to be officially received by school and the community.
You feel like asking whether these stampede to have a bus is like putting the cat before the horse or whether it’s the egg before the chicken or the chicken before the egg in matters priority.
More often, you will see convoys of gleaming yellow school buses snake their ways to a political rally many counties away. You will be attracted hoping to see students in jubilation probably going for either science congresses, sports tournaments or education tours.
You would also be attracted to note the names of schools and their mottos emblazoned on the sides of these buses celebrating excellence, discipline and academic achievements. Sadly, you will be left in awe when you realize that inside these buses are people of white hair. The chants are not of students from a victorious assignment or happy trip but those of political supporters either headed for or from a political rally.
Schools have become transporters of political crowds: the school bus burden.
Nowadays if you see a very beautiful bus approaching on the highway worth looking at twice, it’s a school bus, not public transport bus. Some have Mercedes engines, just to set them apart from smaller schools.
It needs no formal investigations to establish that most of these buses spend better portions of their times ferrying political crowds, community groups and private hires, raising questions about whether schools are prioritizing prestige over pressing educational needs. Simply put, the buses are driven away from their initially intended purpose.
Despite these hires, some school buses are grounded because of least mechanical challenges. Some are grounded because of either an expired insurance or won out tires. And nobody, including the Boards of Management and school administration, can account for where the incomes from the bus hires go to.
It is even more “heart wrenching”, as Millie Mabona is likely to put it, that even functions of the president himself that are attended by top government officials bear these buses even more.
You go to a constituency and you find that ALL the school buses, except the ones with mechanical breakdowns, were all mobilized. This, therefore, means that no school in the whole constituency can engage in an activity that requires the use of their bus until after the political rally. This is prioritizing politics to students learning.
The principals CANNOT do anything because these buses was partly funded by the NG-CDF that are being controlled by the same political class. It’s the same politicians who allocate money for building of schools and any principal who dares challenge them will curse the day S/he attempted to stand on their way.
Truth be said, many schools don’t even need these buses because of their economic status due to even students population and priority at the time of such purchases.
To unburden the schools with these buses, why can’t every constituency have a pool of buses that any school can use! Or a caveat that two or more neighboring schools CANNOT all have buses. Or further that buses are bought for schools uses in every ward for joint use and work other nitty gritties of services, care and maintenance!
And as our schools continue to pay for these buses to bankruptcy, the political class continue to ride to political rallies for free.
The writer is a lecturer of communication and media at Maseno University
