Moral hazards.

The rule that permits public servants to run businesses has led to some absurd situations. In theory there are safeguards to prevent conflicts of interest. Theory is all well and good, but reality reminds us every time that conflicts of interest are the reason why any public servant would go into business while still taking home the government's shilling. 

It will explain why so many principals and headmasters and teachers run schools. It will explain why many Ministry of Education officials run schools. Indeed it explain why officials of the Teachers Service Commission and the teachers' unions run schools. And it will explain why Deputy President William Ruto finds himself standing alone regarding the release of examinations certificates, whether the candidates have paid off their dues or not. You see, Mr Ruto does not own or run a school. Not that I know of, anyway.

This is not a diatribe against school-owning public officers and their hostage-taking of exams' certificates, but the moral hazards the conflicts of interest have engendered in the education sector. One of the most painful things to witness is the sexual exploitation of children by men and women meant to protect them while away from home. Principals, headmasters, teachers, education officials, teachers' union representatives - there isn't a class in the education sector whose members do not have someone who has brutally robbed a child of his or her childhood.

Principles, headmasters and the education ministry have a well-rehearsed process for dealing with men and women who defile children under their care. First, a swift transfer is organised. Then an inquiry is instituted. Then a report is prepared. Then the report is buried. Finally, the parents of the child, where "only" a pregnancy ensued, is paid off and intimidated into silence. The teachers' unions don't give two shits if their members are monsters; all they care about is that the teachers keep paying their dues and voting as directed every time officials are "elected'. The only people these days who seem to care for the welfare of children, barring of course the Children Department, are public prosecutors whose zeal in prosecuting monsters is only matched by their deep desire to empathise with the child victims.

Every year, statistics are published on the number of children who are pregnant or who have contracted sexually transmitted infections. By and large, the bulk of the pregnancies and infections are as a result of defilement by principals, headmasters, teachers and education officials. There is a small proportion of pregnancies and infections are as a result of sexual activity among children. The problem, as many professionals have stated, is that, first, the government is doing precious little to educate the country about how to protect the children from sexual predators, including trusted community leaders and second, there is precious little being done to publicly name, shame, prosecute and punish sexual predators of children. 

That must change today. If it requires a change in the law, so be it. The argument that the predators' families deserve privacy will no longer wash when children as young as twelve are giving birth. If principals, headmasters, teachers and educationists refuse to grasp this bull by its horns, they will have no one to blame when they finally lose the respect of the people - and the people turn against them.