What actually happened at Forest Primary School in Trans Nzoia?
A woman named Dona Makena walked into Forest Primary School in Trans Nzoia County with a straightforward question: why was her younger brother being charged lunch fees that nobody had officially sanctioned? She never got an answer. What she got instead was a beating, captured on video, that is now shaking Kenya’s education system to its core.
Video footage filmed inside the school staffroom shows multiple male staff members grabbing, shoving, and wrestling Makena near a large staff desk as she desperately tries to pull away. Another man in the room beats the window frames and gestures wildly before joining the physical confrontation. Her father, who rushed in to protect her, was also attacked.
The second clip is the one that will stay with you. Makena is on her knees on the staffroom floor, wrists bound together with a thick black cloth, crying hysterically and raising her restrained hands into the air, begging for help. Around her, other staff members sit calmly at their desks, shuffling paperwork, completely indifferent. This is not a scene from a dystopian film — this happened in a Kenyan public school.
What did Makena say about her injuries?
Visibly shaken and in severe pain, Makena cried out on camera: “I will take off my pants — I’m bleeding. Dad, see what they’ve done to me. They have just kicked me. I’m bleeding. My innerwear is bleeding. Naumia!” She then pulled down her clothing in a desperate attempt to show the extent of her injuries. It is the kind of raw, unfiltered anguish that no amount of official spin can soften.
The restraint alone — binding a parent’s wrists inside a school staffroom — constitutes illegal detention under Kenyan law. Combined with the physical assault and the nature of the injuries Makena described, what happened at Forest Primary is not a disciplinary misunderstanding. It is criminal conduct by people entrusted with educating children.
Why was she there in the first place?
At the heart of this incident is a question that thousands of Kenyan parents ask every term: are these fees even legal? Unauthorized school levies — charges that schools impose on families without government approval — have been a persistent and largely unaddressed problem across the country. Parents who push back are often dismissed, intimidated, or ignored. Makena pushed back, and she was assaulted for it.
This is the detail that makes the outrage online feel less like a social media moment and more like a pressure valve finally blowing. The fees were not sanctioned. The school had no legal basis to demand them. Yet when a parent showed up to ask questions, the response was mob violence and physical restraint. The power imbalance here is stark and deliberate.
How has Kenya responded?
The footage spread rapidly across social media, and the reaction has been fierce. On X, Kenyans from across the political spectrum united in disgust. One user wrote: “The Teachers Service Commission and the Ministry of Education must strip these rogue individuals of their teaching licenses immediately. Violence against parents has no place in our educational institutions. What happened at Forest Primary is criminal.” Another demanded: “When did questioning unauthorized fees become a crime punishable by mob assault and restraint? All perpetrators must face the full force of the law.”
Regina Nyaga, another X user, captured the emotional weight of the footage plainly: “Watching that mother crying out in agony with her wrists bound while staff calmly sit at their desks doing paperwork is heartbreaking. No parent should ever face this kind of brutality for seeking transparency on school fees.” Her post carried the hashtag #EndIllegalSchoolLevies — a demand, not a suggestion.
Citizens, parent associations, and human rights advocates are now calling on the Teachers Service Commission, the Ministry of Education, and the National Police Service to act immediately — arrest the perpetrators, revoke their teaching licenses, and hold the institution accountable. As of the time of publication, the Forest Primary School board has issued no statement whatsoever.
What needs to happen now?
The silence from the school board is not neutral — it is a choice. Every hour that passes without accountability emboldens the next teacher who thinks a parent asking questions deserves to be silenced by force. The Teachers Service Commission has the power to suspend and ultimately defrock any educator found guilty of conduct unbecoming, and this footage makes the case for them without ambiguity.
Beyond the individual perpetrators, this incident demands a systemic reckoning with how illegal school levies are enforced across Kenya. Schools that impose unauthorized fees operate in a grey zone that the government has allowed to persist for too long. Makena paid the price for that institutional failure with her blood. The least the system owes her — and every parent like her — is accountability without delay.
