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Parents inspect a dormitory that was set on fire at Magereza Academy in Naivasha. [Antony Gitonga, Standard]
Public anger has been directed at fathers and mothers for the unrest that has gripped secondary schools. The attack on parents is basically an attack on the family unit—the smallest unit of social organisation children are born into and grow.
The media quoted policy and opinion leaders saying that the parents had abdicated their duty to mould their children. Student indiscipline and unrest in schools was evidence of this abdication. The criticism was not entirely misplaced.
It is in the family that fundamental decisions about the education and training of children are made or not made. It is within this setting that children first learn their own individual identity, acquire language, and develop cognitive skills. It is here also that children are socialised into particular ways of thinking about morals, cultural values, and social roles. The family is in this context, the primary agent which socialises children into the folkways—the good and the bad—of the community.
