Students of St.John's Nyamagwa High School in Kisii County on Monday torched a dormitory in protest against poor results in the 2015 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).
The Catholic Church-sponsored institution scored a mean if 7.9 points in last year's KCSE.
The incident which caught staff unawares happened at around 5:30 am in the morning.
Rampaging students allegedly forced their colleagues out of all the dormitories before torching the dormitory named after Cardinal Otunga.
No student was injured during the fire.
Kisii county fire department was not present during the ordeal to help local community's efforts in putting out the blaze. The fire brigade headquarters at Kisii Town is a thirty-minute drive from the school.
The fire brigade's lack of response to the incident comes in the wake of a highly publicised February 2016 trip organised by the Kisii county government and firefighters from the United States of America to train the department on disaster management.
The school administration sent students home for two weeks after the blaze.
Affected students were trooping out of the school with the few books they salvaged from the classrooms.
Police investigators attached to Gucha Police Division arrived and took photographs and samples of destroyed materials to ascertain the exact cause of the fire.
County commissioner Chege Mwangi visited the scene and condemned the action.
"This is a heavy burden on the parents of the school who will be required to pay for the damage," he said.
Bassi Central member of county assembly Isaiah Mosota expressed his shock at the destruction.
"This morning's incident is a disturbing repeat of a similar one in 2014, act of suspected student arson that left another dormitory christened 'Moses' destroyed," he said.
According to a source at the institution who chose to remain anonymous, the school suffered a similar incident in 2014 during which the 'Moses' dormitory was destroyed. No culprits were arrested for the alleged arson.
"Following a requirement by the school that parents foot the bill for repair, a total of 2.8 million was raised towards the expense. The reconstruction has not been done to date," he told the media.