Opinion: We must invest in a more humane school fees system to cut extra costs

One of the more distressing periods for me is early in the year when school fees season, particularly for Form One students commences. While my secondary school fee-paying season ended long ago, I have since acquired many children along the road of life who maintain my contact with an expensive and thereby oppressive school system.

My experiences every year have left me with the discouraging conclusion that good education in Kenya is now the preserve of the rich and middle class. The struggling masses of poor Kenyans are generally condemned to the poverty cycle without an opportunity to break the poverty trap through this traditional “get out of jail” card.

It helps that in constituencies and counties with progressive leadership, CDF and county bursaries provide merit-based support to the deserving poor, ameliorating the crisis. In the majority of places however, those bursaries are like any other political gift; given to buy or reward support, rarely on the basis of merit and need.

To its credit, the Government, in the last few years, has been on the offensive pushing for standardised fees and granting fees subsidies for public secondary schools. The near abolition of school fees for day secondary schools has lifted a huge burden for many parents.

The sad reality however is that most of these day schools are purely growth campuses where children attend to get out of their parents’ hair as opposed to getting a serious education. Most of them attract the lowest caliber of students, have demotivated teachers and little incentive for diligence. For now, only the most committed of students make it to higher education through day schools.

The schools that really facilitate serious scholarship are largely boarding schools and not necessarily the famous ones we can all list. I have been amazed at how some unknown boarding schools in some dusty villages contribute scores of students to public universities, giving these children a chance at success. It is however in these schools that one interacts with the school fees challenge.

Granted, the current official fees of about 28,000 for a Form One entrant in a boarding school is manageable albeit with some struggle. The unfortunate reality however is that the final figure that new students pay is way above that figure, Dr Matiang'i memos notwithstanding.

By the time a student buys school uniform, a mattress, books and all manner of mandatory paraphernalia, the end result is an unmanageable figure that the average parent cannot afford. Imagine a farmer deep in a Kilifi village hardly eking out enough for his daily demands with an intelligent daughter admitted to one of the County High Schools.

Where is he to obtain Sh50, 000 at one go? It is easy to blame school administrators for demanding these extra payments, but that’s putting our heads in the sand.

While the government has strongly demanded that students pay only the maximum fees allowed by the Ministry, it has not provided realistic guidance on what school administrators are to do about these other necessaries. Left to survive in this terrain, school administrators find the easiest route to be parents, who have no choice if they want their child to learn.

What then is to be done? If we accept that education is the greatest opportunity for poverty cycle break, then we must invest in a more humane school fees system that inter alia reduces the costs of these mandatory extras.

Did I hear Hon Moses Kuria launch a publicly funded school uniforms factory in his constituency? Such innovative ideas, if they don’t fall victim of our voracious appetites for public goods, would be useful. Cheaper schoolbooks, including long lasting digital versions, require serious thinking. Some more oversight over the bursary system may mitigate some of our challenges. We must recognise that we are bleeding. That one capable child lost courtesy of poverty, is one child too many.