By Lillian Aluanga
Private schools engaging in malpractices such as double registration of examination centres to ensure good performance risk disciplinary action.
Education PS James Kiyiapi says while not all schools in the private sector are guilty of such malpractices, there are some suspected to be engaging unorthodox means to ensure good rankings.
"The Director of Quality Assurance will soon be going around to inspect schools and where we have credible evidence of incidents such as double registration, appropriate action will be taken," he says.
This ‘action’ ranges from a reprimand to deregistration of centres, but will only be effected after getting results of a survey on the schools.
Chairman of the Kenya Private Schools Association John Mwai says while there may be schools involved in double registration, it behooves the Government to enhance its supervisory role to curb malpractices.
"As an association, we don’t encourage playing such games with children. There have been many allegations against private schools, some of which are unfounded, and we challenge the Government to come up with a research on the same," he says.
Mwai says the hullabaloo created by the Government over such allegations is a demonstration of its weakness in failing to find out why private institutions perform well.
"Why, for instance, doesn’t the Government invite us to a forum where they can get to know what we do instead of creating an imaginary situation that amounts to witch hunting?
"Shouldn’t we instead be creating programmes that will bring public and private sectors in education together?" he poses.
Established to meet a gap in education that was unmet by public institutions, private schools have steadily grown to the current 10,000 registered institutions.
Mwai says the years 2002-2010 alone have seen a 1,000 per cent increase in growth of the schools, which are spread across all the 47 counties. Currently, private primary schools cater for about 1.3 million pupils, while secondary schools absorb 200,000.
"There is a demand for quality education and many private schools are providing it hence demand for more," says Mwai.
That private schools play a crucial role in providing quality education is not in doubt given the Government’s inability to do so following introduction of the Free Primary Education in 2003.
But there have been calls for proper regulation of the sector’s operations. Mwai says the sector is alive to these concerns and is working on a draft Bill that will regulate operations in privately managed educational institutions.
"No industry can be regulated by outsiders. This is why we are working on a draft that will guide operations of these institutions," he says.
Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association National Chair Joseph Karuga says cutthroat competition and glorification of examinations has fanned practices such as drilling, forced repetitions and double registrations among some institutions to record good performances.
"National examinations have become a life and death issue yet this isn’t the only country sitting such. What we need to remind ourselves is that we don’t take our children to school only to pass exams but also get other values crucial in character building," he says.
Kenyatta University lecturer Dr Andrew Riechi says it would be unfair to condemn all private schools given that they supplement efforts by Government to offer access to education.
But he too acknowledges that some proprietors may take advantage of weaknesses in the management of the education sector by the Government to engage in examination malpractices.
"Some exist just for business and barely have qualified staff running the institutions, but then where are the Government’s field officers when all this is happening?" he poses.
To enhance quality of education in schools, Kiyiapi says the ministry is working on a new matrix that will go beyond academics in assessing quality of education offered based on factors such as environment of a school, security, sanitation, buildings and child friendly classrooms.
