Rethink school fee guidelines, Kaimenyi

School principals are firm that secondary boarding schools cannot be run on the fees directed by Education Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi that these institutions must charge. This position has been supported by teachers’ trade union Knut, which has termed the guidelines “unworkable, based on pressure from politicians and civil society and (bent) on plunging schools into a management crisis.”

This circus poses a dilemma for national and other so-called ‘big’ schools. The schools don’t just post good academic results because they enroll bright students. They have elaborate academic programmes, superior learning facilities and an army of subordinate workers. All these things do not come cheap. Equally, they generally feed their students on a better diet. You cannot mold top brains on weevils and inadequate food rations. So naturally, they charge higher fees, sometimes three times as much as smaller schools.