Reprieve for parents as CS Jacob Kaimenyi caps secondary school fees

NAIROBI: Parents can now breathe a sigh of relief after the government released fees guidelines for public secondary schools.

And as Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi issued the guidelines, Deputy President William Ruto warned schools against contravening the directive.

While releasing the guidelines at a press conference in his office in Nairobi, Friday, the CS said secondary school fees has now been capped at Sh9,374 per year for day schools.

He said secondary boarding schools should charge Sh53,553 annually and parents with children in special schools would only be required to pay Sh37,210 annually. These new rates factor in the annual Government subsidy of Sh12,870 per student.

“These new guidelines apply to all public secondary schools regardless of whether they are national, extra county or county schools,” directed the CS. The schools fees will be spread into the three school terms in the ratio of 50:30:20.

“The government would meet the full cost of examination for Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education and has already paid the same for 2015 candidates in public secondary schools,” said Prof Kaimenyi.

The CS said the new directive should reach all principals in public secondary schools latest Tuesday.

Ruto cautioned schools Board of Management (BOM) and principals’ against illegally increasing school fees or else they face the law. “As a government, we want to lift burdens from the parents. From now on, no public boarding school will charge more than Sh50,000 and day school Sh9,000.We are wondering where the schools have been taking the more than Sh100,000 that they have been charging. Those who will contravene this order should watch out since we will soon come for you,” said Mr Ruto.

The DP said all BOMs and school heads must be accountable for the money they were receiving from the government.

“Education must be given the attention it deserves by all the stakeholders since it is key in realising the much needed development,” he said in Thika when he opened Thika Girls’ High School.

There has been outcry from parents and other education stakeholders over the high school fees in public schools with government criticised for abetting the same.

The new secondary fees guidelines have included teaching and learning materials, administration cost, medical, activity fees, repairs, maintenance, local travel and transport, medical and property insurance, personal emolument among others.

“Certain non-essential vote heads such as teacher motivation, education improvement, county education levies among others have been discontinued with immediate effect,” noted Kaimenyi.

Form One students will not pay for on-going infrastructure and school transport projects. However, parents who had students when the projects were approved will pay until the lapse of the said projects. All future infrastructural projects will be undertaken by the Constituency Development Fund or any other government financing mechanism.

The CS said the guidelines take effect from January 5, and supersede any other.

“These guidelines will be gazetted in due course. Parents who have already paid the excess fees will either be refunded or the money will be spread to subsequent years,” said Kaimenyi.

He lauded schools which have been levying fees below the set ceilings and urged them to continue with the same the trend.

The Education CS said stern action will be taken against principals found to have hiked fees.

“As a ministry, we will gather information as to whether school heads have disregarded the directive after which we will recommend to the Teachers Service Commission to take the necessary disciplinary action,” said Kaimenyi.

He however said the recommendations by the Dr Kilemi Mwiria’s taskforce which provided for Sh23,973 for day schools, Sh51,839 for boarding schools and Sh55,435 for special needs schools was not fully implemented when schools reopened in January due to ongoing consultations within government.

However, the new fees structure is 31 per cent over and above the taskforce recommended fees structure.

“This is because the teacher redistribution and employment, rationalisation of non-teaching staff, merger of uneconomical schools and implementation of the proposed subsidies are yet to be effected,” said the CS.

At the same time, Kaimenyi maintained the laptop project for Standard One pupils was still in the pipeline. He defended the abolished ranking of schools in KCPE results saying the decision will stay.

Meanwhile, the CS is today expected to meet with stakeholders to give an update on what has been done so far and discuss the way forward for the laptop project. “We have decided to think outside the box, to behave like a river. You block it and we find another way. We have not killed this project. We will propose a holistic model which has been adopted in Brazil, Portugal and Uruguay on the implementation of the one laptop per child project as well as propose that it be implemented in phases,” he said.

Kaimenyi also pointed out that abolishing school ranking was arrived at following recommendations from task forces set up since 1999.