On May 28, 16 girls were burned alive in their dormitory at Utumishi Girls' Academy in Nakuru County. Nine of their classmates are now under investigation for arson.

Tasha, 15, escaped after friends battered down a door locked from the outside — a direct violation of fire regulations. At a mass for her lost friends, she told AFP: "I didn't think they'd go that far."

That fire was just one of nearly 50 school arson attacks across Kenya this year. More than 100 schools have temporarily closed. The country is watching its own children set their classrooms ablaze, and nobody seems to know how to stop it.

Psychologist Catherine Gachutha, former chair of Kenya's Counselling and Psychological Association, says the teenagers aren't malicious. They're simply "not looking at the consequences." Many are copying fires at other schools, she says, and mirroring the violent protests on Kenyan streets over corruption and economic stagnation — protests where public buildings and businesses are regularly set alight.

But the fires are also a symptom of a deeper crisis. Kenya's education system is buckling under chronic underfunding and corruption. The economy offers formal employment to only 10 to 20 percent of the workforce, yet the school system piles on extreme exam pressure. "These are young people who're going through a school system that isn't giving them jobs," Gachutha said. Fires, she added, "can be a way of rebelling against the government."

Few people want to talk openly about the problems. When AFP visited the charred ruins of a dorm at Gathiruini Boys Secondary School in Kiambu County earlier this month — a fire that, luckily, killed no one — teachers and local education officials all refused to speak.

One experienced principal of a boarding school in western Kenya agreed to talk, but only anonymously. He said teachers face disciplinary action for speaking to the media. He recently sent all his pupils home after receiving an anonymous note threatening "action." "There's a lot of blackmail from these teenagers now," he said, blaming a culture of "over-entitled" children.

But the bigger problem, he said, is consistent delays and shortfalls in government funding, including "misuse" by officials. "Greedy" headmasters oversubscribe schools to get more cash, he added, with pupils often sleeping in converted cafeterias or corridors — in violation of safety guidelines. "The teaching fraternity has turned schools into a cash cow," agreed one parent, also speaking anonymously for fear their child would face consequences.

The lack of basic safety measures is staggering. Isaac Maina, head of national operations at G4S — one of Kenya's largest private fire response companies — said many schools simply can't afford a robust fire plan. George Ndege, head of the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK), said school boards believe "students don't sneak out is more critical than their safety." That means grilled windows and barricaded dormitory doors. AAK has identified 55,000 public schools with "deplorable conditions" and vowed to revamp them, but Ndege said the work will take years.

President William Ruto's government said this week it won't offer financial bailouts for impacted schools, putting the costs on parents. It has pledged a taskforce to examine the factors behind the fires. But similar promises have been made before. After a dorm fire killed 21 boys in 2024, the education ministry ordered 348 boarding schools to convert into day schools for safety reasons. It isn't clear if that order was ever implemented.

The ministry didn't respond to requests for comment from AFP.

Peter Kinyanjui survived a school fire when he was a teenager some 20 years ago. "Fire isn't a yesterday phenomenon. It's not an issue that's coming to surprise people," he said. "We haven't learnt the lessons."

Kenya's preference for boarding schools is a legacy of British colonial rule. Children spend months away from parents in institutions often associated with overcrowding, underfunding, and abuse. The system is a tinderbox — literally. And with no bailout, no enforcement of safety rules, and a government that has made promises it hasn't kept, the next fire is only a matter of time.