School heads to undergo training

By Augustine Oduor

The Government plans to devolve the management of the Education Budget to the school level.

Consequently, Education Permanent Secretary James ole Kiyiapi has urged donors and development partners to help strengthen the capacity of schools to manage funds.

Speaking at a meeting with donors and representatives from the education sector and the civil society yesterday, the PS said in the budget for the next financial year, a section of funds meant for education would be moved from the ministry to be managed by district officers and head teachers to support their supervision and enhance quality service delivery.

"We want to build management capacity from the school level and we are talking to universities to offer short courses on finance and personnel management to head teachers," he said.

INVESTOR CONFIDENCE

The move is meant to build investor confidence. Recently, the Department for International Development (DfID) started supplying 2.6 million textbooks worth Sh683 million directly to schools countrywide.

The direct support to schools by the UK-based aid agency came after it stopped supporting the Kenya Education Sector Support Programme (KESSP) in 2009 following cases of fraud and financial mismanagement in the Ministry of Education.

While announced the change in mode of funding last year, DfID maintained the Government had not done enough to address the risk of fraud to justify resumption of funding.

And yesterday, Kiyiapi asked for support to build capacity to boost accountability of the devolved funds.

"We want to assure our development partners and donors that they are investing in the right sector. We ask you to stay with us and help us institutionalise these management systems so that we can address the key problems," he said.

The workshop is expected to take stock of success, challenges and lessons learnt from the implementation of the first phase of KESSP and the strategic support in the interim period.

School committees

Kiyiapi said a taskforce charged with reviewing the education system has been told to restructure school committees.

"We want to know who constitutes the committee and the role of students. We want to build these systems for accountability," he said.

He added: "There are over 20,000 public schools and we must have a mechanism at the district level. The headquarters can then monitor the districts," he said.

The PS also said there are areas that still need the support of development partners, including the expansion of school infrastructure and bridging the teacher deficit.