Kenya: Circumcision As an Admission Criterion
By, Lawrence Kinoti, The East African Standard (Nairobi), February 21, 2007
In the early 90s, an expatriate teacher at Nkubu High School in Meru decided to show two films to the high school boys.
Being a teacher of Social Education and Ethics, he knew just the right way of sensitising the boys to the dangers of early sex. One of the films this American teacher screened was on the process of birth.
Students watched in amazement. The movie on abortion graphically showed images of techniques like vacuum suction curettage, in which contents of the womb are forcefully sucked out.
In one of the film shifts, students were keenly following the movie, when, suddenly, there was uproar.
The shouts and screams were so intense that, for those students in class, lessons had to be suspended as everyone ran out to find out what the matter was. Outside the laboratory hall in which the movies were being screened, angry students were almost going bizarre.
Students of Burieruri Secondary School in Maua, Meru-North, playing at the institution. According to the school's principal, Burieruri is one of few high schools in the region where boys do not face discrimination on the basis of circumcision. Picture by Lawrence Kinoti
What could the matter be? Inquiries yielded a finding that made sense to the students and teachers from the local communities: While they were watching a scene that involved nudity, the boys had made a shocking discovery. Among them was a classmate who was not circumcised!
Violation of rights
When 20 Form One boys were recently turned away at Kiriani Boys' High School for being uncircumcised, condemnations flew from far and wide.
Some people described the move as "insane and an embarrassment not only to the Meru community, but also to the Kenyan society as a whole".
A local medical doctor, who is also a politician and a human rights activist, Dr Charles Mwirabua Thiakunu, denounced the school management's action, terming it a gross abuse of human rights. "The right to education is a human right, which should not be denied or violated by anyone," he said.
Reacting to the principal's letter barring the boys from school, Thiakunu said two weeks was not a sufficient healing period. He stressed: "Circumcision is not merely the surgery but the ritual, and a rite of passage, which should not be viewed by the students as punishment."
The important ritual of circumcision, he said, is meant to leave a positively indelible mark in one's life history, and must not be stigmatised.
Cultural debate
During Thiakunu's high school days at the local Miathene Boys' High School (where he did his O-levels between 1975 and 1978), no boy went to secondary school uncircumcised.
Why then does he condemn Kithinji's action? He believes that, even where some uncircumcised boys today join high school, there are civil ways of handling the matter, without necessarily barring them from studies.
Kithinji's letter to the parents of the suspended boys read in part: "You sneaked your son in school without reporting to us that the boy was (not circumcised). When such boys are in school, they not only bring a lot of discomfort to the other boys but also cause a lot of psychological torture to your son Please do the needful within two weeks (ie have him circumcised), and let your son report back to school with you immediately he is well".
Even some local headteachers have been outraged. The Principal of Burieruri High School, MM Mutuma, describes Kithinji's action as a "crazy one".
Mutuma says he finds nothing wrong with boys being enrolled in Form One while uncircumcised. He points out that, at his school, a few boys have been completing their secondary education uncircumcised, yet, as he claims, they have never been victimised.
Uncircumcised captain
He cites a case where two boys entered Burieruri at Form One in 2002 and were there for four years, uncircumcised. One of them scored an A- in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination, while his counterpart attained a B. This, according to Mutuma, is evidence that circumcision is not an issue in schools. Says he: "Every year, we admit more than 10 boys uncircumcised, and they interact freely with their colleagues."
Last year, one uncircumcised boy at the school was a dormitory captain who ably served in his role. But Mutuma says such co-existence is only possible in an atmosphere of discipline.
In good faith
The Principal of Meru School, the oldest school in the region, David Gideon Kariuki, has some kind words for Kiriani's headteacher. He says Kithinji may have taken the action in good faith and should not be condemned unheard.
"But my colleague should have consulted widely, before making the unlawful decision."
Kariuki has observed that, where the majority of students in a school come from the neighbouring communities, local cultural practices inevitably infiltrate the students' social life, because, as he observes, a school is an integral part of the socialisation process.
"But this should not be let to supersede an institution's code of rules and regulations," he cautions.
What does Kariuki have to say about his school's curiously sexist and chauvinistic motto, "In understanding be men"? Listen to him: "Here, a real man is judged by his academic performance, and boys have no time to think about circumcision"
If anything, Kariuki adds, "Ours is like a national school, and some of our students are drawn from certain Kenyan communities that do not circumcise".
Discrimination rife
But Dancan Kirimi Mbatau, a former student of Kanyakine Boys' Secondary School, which is located about 12km away, harbours memories of a harrowing experience. When he joined Form One at the school in 1986, Mbatau faced such ferocious discrimination that, when schools closed, he had one demand for his parents: "Have me circumcised or I will drop out!"
Now an accomplished accountant based in Nairobi, he says he could not have withstood the daily taunts and insults hauled his way, especially when time came to take showers or sleep.
To feel safe, he says, "I had to share a bed with the dormitory captain, and only went to sleep when he also did." He adds: "I was literally a slave of the other boys. At times, I even got a beating from the boys for retorting when I felt pushed to the wall."
Mbatau had to be circumcised immediately the schools closed. To this day, the accountant says he could never take his son, uncircumcised, to Form One.
Teach human rights
An official at the Meru-North District Education Office, Mrs Charity Kimbira, says that, culture notwithstanding, the decision over whether to circumcise should be left to the child and parents, not to a school.
She says unhindered access to education is a basic human right. To curb the rampant practice of discrimination, human rights studies should be included in the curriculum.
A local bank manager, Moses Murianki Nabea, describes the barring of boys from school on account of their circumcision status as "Bad news and primitiveness of the highest order We are no longer in the 17th century, when a Meru could not share a room or other property with someone from a tribe that does not circumcise."
Social misfits
Some of the affected parents have resolved not to return their sons to Kiriani. Peter Meeme and Samuel Muriuki say they had arranged to have their sons circumcised after the school closes for the first term.
They could not, as requested by the school, have had their children circumcised last December, because they were not sure their sons would qualify for high school.
Although the Ministry of Education has intervened and ordered the unconditional re-admission of the boys, parents are wary of returning their children to a school where they have been labelled as social misfits.
A parent, Naomi Ngunjiri, appeals to the government to pardon Kithinji, saying the headteacher may have sensed danger at the school, whose majority of students come from the local community.
Ngunjiri's sentiments are echoed by the local Njuri Ncheke Council of Elders Chairman, Mzee Paul M'Ethingia, who says the teacher took the right decision.
Had the suspended students been harmed, M'Ethingia argues, the principal could solely have been held responsible.
The leader believes there was more to Kiriani's circumcision saga than meets the eye, especially considering that the students went on strike expressing support for their headteacher. Already, the principal has been reinstated.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200702201384.html
In the early 90s, an expatriate teacher at Nkubu High School in Meru decided to show two films to the high school boys.
Being a teacher of Social Education and Ethics, he knew just the right way of sensitising the boys to the dangers of early sex. One of the films this American teacher screened was on the process of birth.
Students watched in amazement. The movie on abortion graphically showed images of techniques like vacuum suction curettage, in which contents of the womb are forcefully sucked out.
In one of the film shifts, students were keenly following the movie, when, suddenly, there was uproar.
The shouts and screams were so intense that, for those students in class, lessons had to be suspended as everyone ran out to find out what the matter was. Outside the laboratory hall in which the movies were being screened, angry students were almost going bizarre.
Students of Burieruri Secondary School in Maua, Meru-North, playing at the institution. According to the school's principal, Burieruri is one of few high schools in the region where boys do not face discrimination on the basis of circumcision. Picture by Lawrence Kinoti
What could the matter be? Inquiries yielded a finding that made sense to the students and teachers from the local communities: While they were watching a scene that involved nudity, the boys had made a shocking discovery. Among them was a classmate who was not circumcised!
Violation of rights
When 20 Form One boys were recently turned away at Kiriani Boys' High School for being uncircumcised, condemnations flew from far and wide.
Some people described the move as "insane and an embarrassment not only to the Meru community, but also to the Kenyan society as a whole".
A local medical doctor, who is also a politician and a human rights activist, Dr Charles Mwirabua Thiakunu, denounced the school management's action, terming it a gross abuse of human rights. "The right to education is a human right, which should not be denied or violated by anyone," he said.
Reacting to the principal's letter barring the boys from school, Thiakunu said two weeks was not a sufficient healing period. He stressed: "Circumcision is not merely the surgery but the ritual, and a rite of passage, which should not be viewed by the students as punishment."
The important ritual of circumcision, he said, is meant to leave a positively indelible mark in one's life history, and must not be stigmatised.
Cultural debate
During Thiakunu's high school days at the local Miathene Boys' High School (where he did his O-levels between 1975 and 1978), no boy went to secondary school uncircumcised.
Why then does he condemn Kithinji's action? He believes that, even where some uncircumcised boys today join high school, there are civil ways of handling the matter, without necessarily barring them from studies.
Kithinji's letter to the parents of the suspended boys read in part: "You sneaked your son in school without reporting to us that the boy was (not circumcised). When such boys are in school, they not only bring a lot of discomfort to the other boys but also cause a lot of psychological torture to your son Please do the needful within two weeks (ie have him circumcised), and let your son report back to school with you immediately he is well".
Even some local headteachers have been outraged. The Principal of Burieruri High School, MM Mutuma, describes Kithinji's action as a "crazy one".
Mutuma says he finds nothing wrong with boys being enrolled in Form One while uncircumcised. He points out that, at his school, a few boys have been completing their secondary education uncircumcised, yet, as he claims, they have never been victimised.
Uncircumcised captain
He cites a case where two boys entered Burieruri at Form One in 2002 and were there for four years, uncircumcised. One of them scored an A- in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination, while his counterpart attained a B. This, according to Mutuma, is evidence that circumcision is not an issue in schools. Says he: "Every year, we admit more than 10 boys uncircumcised, and they interact freely with their colleagues."
Last year, one uncircumcised boy at the school was a dormitory captain who ably served in his role. But Mutuma says such co-existence is only possible in an atmosphere of discipline.
In good faith
The Principal of Meru School, the oldest school in the region, David Gideon Kariuki, has some kind words for Kiriani's headteacher. He says Kithinji may have taken the action in good faith and should not be condemned unheard.
"But my colleague should have consulted widely, before making the unlawful decision."
Kariuki has observed that, where the majority of students in a school come from the neighbouring communities, local cultural practices inevitably infiltrate the students' social life, because, as he observes, a school is an integral part of the socialisation process.
"But this should not be let to supersede an institution's code of rules and regulations," he cautions.
What does Kariuki have to say about his school's curiously sexist and chauvinistic motto, "In understanding be men"? Listen to him: "Here, a real man is judged by his academic performance, and boys have no time to think about circumcision"
If anything, Kariuki adds, "Ours is like a national school, and some of our students are drawn from certain Kenyan communities that do not circumcise".
Discrimination rife
But Dancan Kirimi Mbatau, a former student of Kanyakine Boys' Secondary School, which is located about 12km away, harbours memories of a harrowing experience. When he joined Form One at the school in 1986, Mbatau faced such ferocious discrimination that, when schools closed, he had one demand for his parents: "Have me circumcised or I will drop out!"
Now an accomplished accountant based in Nairobi, he says he could not have withstood the daily taunts and insults hauled his way, especially when time came to take showers or sleep.
To feel safe, he says, "I had to share a bed with the dormitory captain, and only went to sleep when he also did." He adds: "I was literally a slave of the other boys. At times, I even got a beating from the boys for retorting when I felt pushed to the wall."
Mbatau had to be circumcised immediately the schools closed. To this day, the accountant says he could never take his son, uncircumcised, to Form One.
Teach human rights
An official at the Meru-North District Education Office, Mrs Charity Kimbira, says that, culture notwithstanding, the decision over whether to circumcise should be left to the child and parents, not to a school.
She says unhindered access to education is a basic human right. To curb the rampant practice of discrimination, human rights studies should be included in the curriculum.
A local bank manager, Moses Murianki Nabea, describes the barring of boys from school on account of their circumcision status as "Bad news and primitiveness of the highest order We are no longer in the 17th century, when a Meru could not share a room or other property with someone from a tribe that does not circumcise."
Social misfits
Some of the affected parents have resolved not to return their sons to Kiriani. Peter Meeme and Samuel Muriuki say they had arranged to have their sons circumcised after the school closes for the first term.
They could not, as requested by the school, have had their children circumcised last December, because they were not sure their sons would qualify for high school.
Although the Ministry of Education has intervened and ordered the unconditional re-admission of the boys, parents are wary of returning their children to a school where they have been labelled as social misfits.
A parent, Naomi Ngunjiri, appeals to the government to pardon Kithinji, saying the headteacher may have sensed danger at the school, whose majority of students come from the local community.
Ngunjiri's sentiments are echoed by the local Njuri Ncheke Council of Elders Chairman, Mzee Paul M'Ethingia, who says the teacher took the right decision.
Had the suspended students been harmed, M'Ethingia argues, the principal could solely have been held responsible.
The leader believes there was more to Kiriani's circumcision saga than meets the eye, especially considering that the students went on strike expressing support for their headteacher. Already, the principal has been reinstated.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200702201384.html
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 10:40 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home