Building Sustainable Public Schools in Kenya: A Leadership, Psychology, and Faith-Based Approach to Ending the Cycle of School Unrest
By Dr. Gilbert A. Ang’ana (PhD)
For decades, Kenya has grappled with recurring waves of school unrest. From strikes and boycotts to destruction of property and tragic loss of life, school unrest has become one of the most persistent challenges facing the education sector. While every incident attracts public outrage and immediate disciplinary responses, the recurrence of unrest suggests that the problem is deeper than student indiscipline. It points to systemic leadership, psychological, relational, and developmental gaps within our schools.
Research on school strikes in Kenya consistently shows that many incidents stem from unresolved student grievances, weak communication channels, feelings of exclusion, and frustrations that accumulate over time before erupting into unrest. Recent public discourse has increasingly highlighted concerns around student anxiety, emotional distress, excessive academic pressure, burnout, and the inability of institutions to recognize warning signs before crises emerge.
In this article, I argue that if Kenya is to build sustainable public schools, the solution must go beyond strengthening discipline systems. It requires a fundamental shift toward developing schools that are enriches emotionally intelligence, psychologically safe, spiritually grounded, and collaboratively led.
Understanding the Real Challenge
Historically, responses to school unrest have largely focused on punishment, surveillance, and enforcement. While accountability remains important, evidence suggests that unrest often emerges when students feel unheard, misunderstood, or disconnected from the institutions meant to support them. The reality is that today’s learners are growing up in a vastly different world from previous generations. They face social media pressures, mental health challenges, family instability, economic uncertainty, identity struggles, and heightened academic expectations. Yet many schools continue to operate using leadership and management approaches designed for a different era.
The question I am attempting to address, therefore, is not simply how to stop unrest. The question is how to build schools where students flourish academically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.
Teachers Must Become Leaders
One of the greatest misconceptions in education is that teachers are primarily content deliverers/facilitators of knowledge. In reality, teachers are leaders. Every interaction between a teacher and a learner shapes attitudes, character, values, confidence, resilience, and future leadership behavior. Sustainable schools require teachers who possess strong leadership competencies in addition to pedagogical expertise.
Teachers and school leaders should therefore be intentionally developed in emotional intelligence, conflict management, collaborative leadership, active listening, student engagement and participation, coaching conversations, change leadership, and trust-building practices. Research on social and emotional learning demonstrates that schools that intentionally build emotional intelligence and relational competencies create healthier learning environments and stronger school climates.
Instead of asking, “How do we control students?” teachers(leaders) should ask, “How do we create conditions where students feel valued, heard, and responsible?” This requires moving from command-and-control leadership toward human-centered leadership. School principals must similarly evolve from administrators to culture builders. Their role should include cultivating trust, encouraging dialogue, and ensuring that grievances are identified and addressed before they escalate into crises.
Every Teacher Needs Basic Counselling and Coaching Competencies
A second critical pillar is psychology. Teachers are often the first adults outside the family to observe signs of distress, anxiety, depression, bullying, trauma, social isolation, or behavioral changes among students. Unfortunately, many teachers have never received adequate training in recognizing and responding to such challenges. Studies in Kenya have consistently highlighted the important role that guidance and counselling can play in reducing student unrest and improving student well-being.
Yet guidance and counselling departments in many schools remain under-resourced, reactive, or peripheral to the school’s core strategy. A sustainable public school system should ensure that every teacher receives foundational competencies in psychology first aid, basic counselling skills, coaching methodologies, adolescent development, mental health awareness, trauma practice, conflict mediation, and peer support facilitation. This does not mean turning teachers into psychologists. It means equipping them to recognize warning signs, hold supportive conversations, and refer learners appropriately.
Equally important is creating structured student support systems that include peer mentorship programs, student well-being committees, professional counsellors, wellness check-ins, student voice forums, and restorative justice approaches. The future of school discipline is not just punitive as aluded by many leaders. It is restorative.
Rebuilding Character and Purpose
Kenya’s education system has traditionally recognized the importance of moral and spiritual development. However, increasing societal pressures, technological disruptions, and value fragmentation have created a growing need for intentional character formation. Faith-based development should not be viewed as an optional extra. It should be understood as a critical component of holistic education. Spiritual formation helps learners develop purpose and meaning, moral reasoning, self-awareness, empathy, responsibility, hope, service orientation, and resilience during adversity. Schools that intentionally nurture spiritual growth often create stronger communities built around shared values, respect, accountability, and belonging.
This does not imply indoctrination. Rather, it involves creating environments where students can reflect on values, explore meaning, engage in service, and develop ethical leadership. At a time when many young people are searching for identity and purpose, schools must become places that shape not only minds but also character.
Strengthening Boards of Management and Parent Associations
No school can become sustainable without effective governance. Boards of Management (BOMs) and Parents Teachers Associations (PTAs) are often expected to provide oversight despite receiving limited preparation for the increasingly complex challenges facing schools. Today’s BOMs and PTAs must understand school governance, student psychology, risk management, leadership development, mental wellness, child protection, conflict resolution, strategic planning, and stakeholder engagement. Unfortunately, many members assume office without structured induction or ongoing capacity development.
This gap presents a significant opportunity for universities.Institutions such as PAC University and other higher education institutions can partner with schools to develop comprehensive governance and leadership development frameworks for BOMs, PTAs, principals, and teachers. Such frameworks could include annual certification programs, executive leadership workshops, governance academies, school psychological safety assessments, counselling skills development, and evidence-based leadership interventions. Universities possess the research capacity, faculty expertise, and training infrastructure needed to support schools in addressing emerging challenges systematically rather than reactively.
Policy Recommendations for the Ministry of Education in Kenya
To build sustainable public schools, policymakers should consider the following reforms:
- Make leadership development and social-emotional learning mandatory components of teacher development programs.
- Integrate foundational counselling and coaching competencies into teacher training curricula.
- Establish minimum mental health and counselling standards for all public schools.
- Develop national frameworks for student voice and participation.
- Institutionalize continuous leadership development for principals, deputy principals, BOMs, and PTAs.
- Introduce school climate and well-being audits alongside academic performance evaluations.
- Strengthen partnerships between schools, universities, faith organizations, and community stakeholders.
- Allocate dedicated funding for learner well-being, counselling services, and leadership development.
These recommendations align with global evidence emphasizing the importance of social and emotional learning as a foundation for peaceful, inclusive, and sustainable education systems. The future of Kenyan education will not be secured by discipline and punishments in schools. Sustainable schools are built through stronger relationships, healthier cultures, effective leadership, enhanced emotional intelligence, effective psychological support systems, and purposeful spiritual formation.
The recurring cycle of school unrest should be viewed not as a discipline problem but as a leadership challenge, a psychological challenge, and a societal challenge. If teachers become effective leaders, if schools embrace counselling and coaching cultures, if faith and character formation regain prominence, and if Boards of Management and PTAs are equipped through strategic partnerships with universities, Kenya can create schools that are emotionally healthy, socially responsible, and spiritually grounded. The goal should not simply be schools without unrest. The goal should be schools where every learner can thrive.
Author
Dr. Gilbert A. Ang’ana is the Dean of School of Leadership, Business, and Technology at Pan Africa Christian (PAC) University whose research focus is on values-based and collaborative leadership and governance in Africa. He is a leadership, governance and policy consultant, teacher and coach and the Founder of Accent Leadership Group and Accent Global Initiative (Think Tank)
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