A class seven boy at JoyMax Academy in Eldoret is nursing serious injuries after being whipped by his teacher over an alleged love affair with a fellow pupil.
Mr David Webwe is accused of whipping the 12-year-old Samuel Mburu using a wire and inflicting serious injuries all over his body for dating a class eight girl. On Monday, the accused admitted to caning the pupil to ‘instill discipline’ in him, claiming the pupil was part of a group that was misbehaving in school.
“I heard about it (the love affair) and I started to investigate and found out that three girls and the boy were involved in a form of courtship,” said Mr Webwe.
The school head teacher, Mr Hylum Inambutsi, had earlier given a conflicting account, saying that a table in the office injured the pupil as the teacher was interrogating him over the alleged love affair. “He was not caned, but only got injured by a table after he rose. We were planning to inform the parents about the son’s accident this week,” the head teacher stated.
It is reported that over 30 pupils out of 200 pupils in the school recently transferred due to corporal punishment but the head teacher insisted that they moved to other schools because of ‘personal reasons’.
The boy’s father, Mr Patrick Maina, said he had gone to the school to take some fruits to his son, only to discover that the pupil had a visible scar on the neck. “I went to school and found my son seated with other pupils outside the office. The teacher who was also present told me that we need to go inside the office to talk about something,” he said.
The father said upon noticing the scar on the boy’s neck, he probed both the teacher and the boy over it. “The teacher said he had been scratched by a table. But the boy pointed at the teacher and asked me to go with him to the dormitory so that he can show me more scars on the body,” he narrated.
According to the boy’s father, his son had reported to the teacher that there was a class eight girl who was writing him love letters. “He told me he reported thrice but nothing was done instead the teacher disciplined him using a wire,” said the father.
The father reported the incident at Baharini police station on Monday, filed a P3 form and vowed to transfer his son from the school. Sourced from Nation/Nairobi News
