To be honest, senior secondary school principals have a point in pushing for up to Sh42,000 fees increment on the top of the existing annual amounts recommended by the Ministry of Education. The current school fees structure being implemented is grossly insufficient to run schools considering the prevailing challenges of inflation and unstable prices of essential goods and services.
If we want to be honest as a country and effectively confront the challenges facing our education sector, we must be willing to address the real elephant in the room, which is the high running cost for educational institutions.
Painful as it may sound to parents who might be forced to dig deeper into their pockets, there is no doubt that school managers have encountered immense difficulties in appropriating the meagre resources made available by struggling parents and a government that has been inconsistent in releasing capitation funds. If we expect principals to run the schools smoothly, we must ask ourselves if the current school fees figures paid by parents is enough.
The answer is no.