NAIROBI: At least 224 primary schools and 42 secondary schools in Wajir County, a border area in Kenya with Somalia, can no longer function after non-local teachers fled the area. The exodus was caused by the al-Shabab attack on a primary school in which two non-Muslim teachers were killed. Kenya's Teachers Service Commission transferred 329 teachers elsewhere for their safety. Many others left on their own. In all, 917 non-Muslim primary school teachers have left the region. Analysts say the extremist group threatens education in a region that until recently was the most marginalized in Kenya and has been described as a hotbed for recruitment for extremist groups, which oppose Western education. Children out of school become easy targets.
For al-Shabab the closure of schools will be seen as "a success," said Abdullahi Boru Halakhe, an expert in countering violent extremism. "Schools and education is one of the antidotes against the narratives of the (extremist) group. Thus, if you close the school, how else can you build a counter-narrative?" he asked.
Al-Shabab has carried out a wave of attacks in Kenya since 2011, calling it retribution for Kenya sending troops to Somalia to fight the extremists. Attacks include the April 2015 raid on Garissa University that left 147 people dead. Teachers near the Somali border have been targeted, including in a November 2014 attack on a bus in neighboring Mandera County.
Some 120 non-Muslim teachers have left their posts in Mandera County due to the latest insecurity. The teachers have been sleeping in the Kenya National Union of Teachers boardroom for nearly two months and spend their days camped out at the offices of their employer, the Teachers Service Commission. Police routinely use tear gas on them as they protest and demand better protection from the extremist threat.
"We have asked the government to transfer teachers where they feel safe," said the union's secretary-general, Wilson Sossion. The threat of attack is not the only problem non-Muslim teachers face in the predominantly ethnic Somali region, said Peter Amunga, an education activist. Discrimination by the local community and radicalized students are other challenges. Non-Muslims make up 90 per cent of the teachers in the border areas as marginalization and nomadic culture have limited the number of local ones, he said.
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