School fees saga reveals huge discrepancies

Schools opened last week albeit with too much push and pull by parents, unions and the government over school fees, which begs the question, who determines fees to be paid in Kenyan schools?

The inconsistencies in the fee structures given to parents proved lack of co-ordination and somewhat a culture of impunity in schools. Whereas the government insisted that fee guidelines had been rolled out to the schools, there were huge disparities in the actual fees being charged by the schools.

Are schools semi-autonomous organisations in this country or are they forced to be by the high cost of living? Maybe the government never considered the actual cost of operating a school before issuing the guidelines or maybe the schools are engaging in too many activities which lead to the financial constraints experienced. Things like joint examinations, teacher motivation, benchmarking with other institutions could be the cause of the rising overhead costs for schools,

Do we have a policy for them?

There must be a clear cut between education policies and political declarations. A case in point is where the government insists on learners collecting their certificates from schools free of charge while schools insist that all the fees owed must be completed first.

A similar case is the issue of examination fees which was waived by the government but parents continue incurring charges during examination registration. Now, need to know, who is fooling who?