Huge cuts in school fees to ease burden

Head teachers at the Kenya Secondary Schools Head Teachers Association’s 39th annual conference at Wildwaters in Mombasa. [Photo: Maarufu Mohamed/Standard]

Mombasa, Kenya: Parents could shoulder a lighter burden if proposals to slash fees for public secondary schools by more than half are adopted. National schools will charge parents some Sh49,081 should the new fees guidelines become effective.

This would be a drastic reduction as some have been charging in excess of Sh100,000, which has seen secondary education become a preserve of the rich.

Under the proposed new fees structure, parents with students in county schools will pay Sh43,708. Equally, fees for sub-county schools are proposed to come down to Sh12,708.

The Government subsidy will top-up the differences for the categories to meet the proposed new ceilings.

These are among the proposals by the 21-member task force established to review fees for public schools after a national uproar over exorbitant tuition charges.

The team headed by former Ministry of Education assistant minister Dr Kilemi Mwiria will brief Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi on July 3.

Thereafter, the report will be presented to stakeholders on July 7 for moderation before adoption by the Government.

County schools

Under the proposals seen by The Standard, fees for national schools are capped at Sh62,081. The difference is topped up by a Government subsidy.

The Government has increased capitation in secondary schools by 33 per cent, which is Sh13,000. This means parents with children in national schools will pay Sh49,081.

The task force has proposed fees for county schools to be capped at Sh56,902, and parents will pay Sh43,708 after the State subsidies are remitted to schools.

Under these guidelines, parents with students in sub-county schools will now pay Sh12,708. The team has, however, capped the fees in this category of schools at Sh25,907.

The review team has proposed uniform tuition fees in all the schools at Sh4,270.

The report says that tuition fees should cater for teaching and learning material, administrative costs, electricity, water, medical and approved development projects.

The committee has also proposed a raft of areas to cut costs to further bring down the cost of secondary education.

It has proposed that the feeding fees in national schools be put at Sh22,422 and a further Sh3,167 to cater for repair, maintenance and transport.

"The team could not understand why schools within the same location would charge feeding money," said the source privy to the committee decisions.

In addition to this, the task force has recommended that the "development fee" be scrapped from the structure as it has been subject to abuse by school heads.

Sources privy to the report said that principals have abused this vote with some schools demanding up to 13,000 from parents.

Also highlighted in the report is a thorough audit of teachers employed by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and schools' boards of management.

The report says teachers employed by the schools and paid by parents are more than those on the TSC payroll.

"This is further expected to cut down on the monies levied on parents," it reads in part.

School uniforms

Under the new proposals, the committee also wants minimum basic requirements for school uniforms set.

It says that items like blazers and sweaters should be determined by the weather, and must not be compulsory for students to join schools.

Also mentioned are physical Education (PE) kits that the team wants to be regulated noting that schools must not send students away for lack of any.

But most importantly, the team has proposed a major amendment on school menus.

Addressing over 7,000 secondary school principals at Wild Waters Centre in Mombasa Monday, the Director of Tertiary and Secondary Education Mr Robert Masese said the report would be out "shortly".

 He told the principals that Prof Kaimenyi would be briefed on the report by July 3.

"The moderation of the document will be done on July 7 and all stakeholders including the press and other education stakeholders will be welcome," said Masese.

Senate consulted

He said the led task force was all encompassing as per the law.

"You remember it was consultative from district to national level. Views were also received from the counties and a consultative forum convened at the Kenya Education Management Institute (Kemi)," he said.

The Senate, Council of Governors and the House Committee on Education Science and technology were also consulted, he said.

"The team also went to the Bomas of Kenya where students' councils were meeting, and incorporated their views because you know they must also be consulted," he added.

Cost cutting

Masese said that during the information gathering process, "national schools and other outstanding schools were consulted to come up with a realistic cost of education" as part or the bigger strategy of education funding.

He was making a presentation on "funding and sustainability of quality secondary education."

In his presentation, Masese admitted that Government resources are overstretched and asked secondary school principals to adopt innovative ways to cut cost.