Questions emerge over review of school fees

Proposals of a task force established to review the cost of secondary school fees have elicited varied reactions, including differences in opinion among members of the team.

The 27-member Task force on Secondary School Fees led by former Assistant Minister for Education Dr Kilemi Mwiria, was set up to find ways of making quality secondary education accessible to all youths by establishing a realistic unit cost of education. This would in turn guide determination of the Government budgetary allocation to the sub sector.

The task force, in a report presented to President Uhuru Kenyatta, this week, proposed huge reductions in secondary school fees, that will see parents of children in public boarding schools pay an annual fee of Sh38,969, if adopted. The proposed annual fees for days schools would be Sh11,105, while students in Special Needs Education schools would pay Sh22,830, each year. Currently, some boarding schools charge as much as Sh100,000 annually, with some day schools charging nearly double the amount proposed.

To arrive at the proposed figures, the task force computed what it terms the ‘realistic unit costs for secondary schools’. Unit cost relates to expenses of items such as food, electricity, repairs, maintenance, activity fees and transport.

According to the team’s survey, the ‘realistic cost,’ for instance, of teaching and learning materials for day and boarding schools would be Sh4,792 each, per year. Similar costs for Special Needs schools stand at Sh9,067. Boarding, equipment, stores and meals (lunch for day schools) is put at Sh5,861 for day schools, Sh24, 721 for boarding schools and Sh24, 721 for Special needs schools. Electricity, water and conservancy is at Sh2,405 for day schools, Sh5,956 for boarding schools and Sh3,089 for Special Needs schools, while transport is pegged at Sh1,399, Sh1,848 and Sh1,637 for each category of schools, respectively.

What this means, according to the team’s findings, is that it is possible to run a day school with just Sh23,975 in a year. If one subtracts the Government subsidy of Sh12,870, it means parents of a child in such schools would only pay Sh11,105, per year.

In the same way the ‘total realistic unit costs’ of running a boarding school, in a year, is about Sh51,839. This, minus a Government subsidy of Sh12, 870, means one only needs to meet the difference of Sh38,969, annually.

The 2008 task force on Affordable Secondary Education set the amount for free day secondary education at Sh10,265 per child per year, while boarding costs were put at Sh18,627 per student. The figures have since been revised upwards and are usually disbursed in three tranches; January, April and August.

While the recommendations made by Mwiria’s team may sound like music to many parents' ears, there are those questioning how the figures will be implemented and still maintain quality standards in schools.

“The task force failed to address the main reasons for the rise in school fees. It also failed to address matters of policy at the Ministry of Education, and did not appreciate that schools in different environments have different modes of operation,” says Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) Secretary General Akelo Misori. Kuppet was a member of the task force and was represented by its National Secretary for Secondary schools, Mr Edward Obwocha.

According to Misori, while it is a welcome idea to reduce the cost of secondary fees to manageable levels, proposals offered must be realistic.

LUXURIES VS ESSENTIALS

The task force, he says, was being populist and wanted to please parents.

“Take the example of a school in Nairobi that has a swimming pool which must be maintained. Such a school’s needs are different from one in the countryside that doesn’t have such a facility. While it may be viable to use firewood as a fuel in some schools the same may not apply to others,”he says.

“Even the price of maize differs from one region to another, unless we are saying that all schools should buy their supplies from government institutions selling the cereals where prices are standardised,” he adds.

Misori says the Education Ministry should establish a policy on the proposed levies, while the Government should boost its allocations to education, if such figures are to work.

But Elimu Yetu Coalition’s Janet Muthoni-Ouko, who was a member of the task force, says the proposed figures are workable.

“We must be cognisant of the fact that public secondary schools are not profit-making institutions. Our task was to advise the Government on what the actual cost to sufficiently run a school is while still providing standard education,” she says.

While conceding that it was true that some schools had extra facilities that needed maintenance, such costs need not be shifted to parents.
One of the issues that also arose in the task force’s deliberations was how relevant some of these facilities are, given that one team’s mandate was reviewing what constitutes ‘essential versus luxurious or optional’ needs in secondary education.

School uniform, for instance, was singled out as constituting one of the key drivers of indirect schooling cost. The team analysed samples of fees structures and related data from schools and identified items considered ‘non essential’, that include pairs of trousers (out of class uniform), swimsuits, blazers, plain short and long sleeved T-shirts, pillows and pillow cases. Under food items biscuits, bread spreads like margarine, and thermos flasks were also viewed as non essentials. Essential items on the other hand include skirts, shorts, blouses, shirts, sweater, tie, pairs of socks, blankets, towels, jackets, low-heeled black shoes and sandals. Food items that are essential include beverages like drinking chocolate, cocoa and sugar. Cutlery like teaspoons and mugs are also viewed as important.

“We have painted a picture to the Education Ministry and public that with these amounts of money it is possible to run a school,” says Muthoni-Ouko.

Kenya Secondary School Heads Association chair John Awiti, who was also a member of the task force, says stakeholders should be given time to scrutinise and discuss the report in detail.