Key issues haunting education sector as schools reopen today

A printing trader marks a mattress belonging to Vic Kimutai, a Standard Six pupil at Abandant Hope School, along Kenyatta street in Eldoret, on Saturday. Many parents say they lose a lot of money as a result of cases of theft among pupils. [PHOTO: PETER OCHIENG/STANDARD]

Five emerging issues in the education sector may impact negatively on performance of the public education system as schools reopen today unless they are thrashed out well.

These are exorbitant fees charged by public secondary schools in violation of government guidelines, increase in cost of text books, stalled pay talks with teachers, disputes over Form One selection formula and implementation of performance contracts for teachers.

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, who is still new in office, has been thrust at the centre of controversies as he plans to meet representatives of private schools tomorrow to address their grievances on selection of top performers in the 2015 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams to join national schools.

The aggrieved groups are the private academies who get a lesser allocation to these prized schools compared to public institutions.

DISPUTED PAY

Dr Matiang’i will also ‘inherit’ the long-running headache of a disputed pay rise as the two teachers’ unions have warned of an imminent nationwide strike this school term if the stalled collective bargaining agreement (CBA) talks are not concluded.

The Standard has established that Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia has invited the unions to a meeting on January 15.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) and Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) officials yesterday said the CBA was their priority and they had asked their more than 280,000 members not to sign performance appraisals this month as directed by their employer.

“Nobody should listen to calls to sign performance contracts.

“There is nowhere in law where teachers are needed to sign contracts and it is a ploy to mistreat the teaching force in the country,” Knut Secretary General Wilson Sossion said yesterday.

“We are approaching this month with an open mind and we hope TSC shall be serious this time round because if we do not agree the consequences are known,” warned Kuppet Secretary General Akelo Misori on the CBA.

Mr Sossion added the national executive council would meet this week to decide.

“The President intervened and asked the teachers’ employer to engage us.

“We started meetings but they came with unrealistic conditions. We want a quality CBA signed,” he explained.

The enforcement of performance appraisals for teachers by TSC and the demand that all teachers must validate their union membership by end of February are also friction points.

Sossion and Misori yesterday warned they would resist TSC’s move to alter their membership “at whatever cost.”

The commission also wants the 30,000 school heads to sign performance contracts and the 298,000 teachers appraised annually, starting this month, to improve the quality of education in public schools.

Matiang’i has cautioned that teacher absenteeism has reached chronic levels and asked TSC to intervene.

However, the unions have rejected the appraisal exercise, terming it as unnecessary.

But TSC insists that the process must be carried out to improve the quality education in public schools.

TSC Chairperson Lydia Nzomo yesterday argued the exercise would analyse teachers’ performance gaps with a view to providing necessary development support.

soaring costs

The Government is also facing another challenge as parents have protested increased fees in public schools and the soaring cost of books.

The Kenya Publishers Association (KPA) yesterday warned that if the Government fails to scrap the 16 per cent consumer levy – value added tax (VAT) – on books, the cost of learning materials would further go up this year.

“If the Government scraps the VAT on books starting this morning, the cost will go down,” said KPA Chairman David Waweru.

He said the cost of some 200 books had risen by between four and 10 per cent and attributed the increase to a raft of factors.

“We have been considerate because we know Kenyans are already burdened. But if the Government does not act on VAT, the cost of books will go up,” he said.

Waweru said in 2015 alone, the average cost of production went up by some 22 per cent.

“The cost of printing papers, ink and plates went up by 11 per cent.

“The average increase of cost of labour was seven per cent and the cost of production went up by four per cent,” he said.

Waweru also cited the cost of depreciating value of the shilling adding up to the cost of production.

“Kenya is a net importer of paper and other raw materials, and variations in the value of the shilling against the dollar directly affects the cost of production,” he said.

Parents have already complained about the high cost of taking children back to school, with some saying they had spent up to Sh17,000 on books alone for primary school children.

Parents, however, have another burden – school fees. Matiang’i promised to address the rising school fees issue during the Form One selection process on January 21.

But as parents wait for his communication, some schools are already charging up to Sh100,000 against the gazetted limits by the ministry .

A circular released by the ministry caps fees for day schools at Sh9,374 per year.

The circular released in February last year also sets boarding school fees at Sh53,553 per year.

Boarding fees alone was pegged at a flat rate of Sh32,385. Fees for special schools were set at Sh37,210 annually.

These rates were arrived at after deducting the Government subsidy of Sh13,000 per child per year.

The disregard for the school fees guidelines has set parents’ associations against county directors, with court cases already filed.

Kenya National Association of Parents (KNAP) Secretary General Musau Ndunda reported he had sued some 15 county directors of education (CEDs) to explain why fees in schools under their jurisdictions were above the set limits.

“We shall sue all the 47 CEDs because they are the ones condoning the increase. The ministry is incapable of checking these increases as they lack inspection personnel,” said Mr Ndunda.

Form One selection is another bone of contention that is likely to disrupt the term starting today.

Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA) has already rejected the revised formula to be used to select Form One students.

At the centre of the dilemma has been how the 22,000 slots in the 103 coveted national schools would be filled.

KPSA Chief Executive Officer Peter Ndoro argued that the formula must be revised to reflect merit and affirmative action.

“Private schools are not opposed to equitable distribution of national school slots and the application of affirmative action.

“What we are opposed to is the classification of candidates as public or private for reasons of discrimination,” said Ndoro.

Matiang’i has already warned private schools not to be too sure of having their way on the admission criteria even as he promised to meet them tomorrow.

“I wish to assure parents and guardians that merit, quota allocations, equity, affirmative action and student choice will be the overriding factors to be considered during the selection exercise,” he assured.