Release school funds to ease operations

Schools can only function optimally if adequate resources are put at their disposal. This is, of course, a major challenge as the government grapples with financial difficulties that have necessitated budget cuts.

School managers are not miracle workers. They can only keep learners in class if enabled to provide their basic needs, including paying for supplies and services.

Financial allocations to learning institutions in recent years have often been delayed. In some cases, the funds are eventually disbursed just before the term ends and yet the headteachers are prohibited from sending learners home for lack of funds to cater for them.

Though schools have reopened for the first term of the academic year, they will have to wait longer for the release of their Sh48 billion.

Heads of the public schools, which reopened without 50 per cent of the funds due to them, will wait until later this month.

They are also confronted with lack of classrooms for the Grade Nine learners under the Competency-Based Curriculum despite assurances by the government that the bulk of the facilities would have been ready by now.

All the school managers have is an assurance by Treasury CS John Mbadi that the government is mobilising resources to ensure money is sent to accounts before January 31.

Though the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform proposed an increase in funding for primary school learners from Sh1,420 to Sh2,238, junior school at Sh15, 043 and for the secondary schools to Sh22,527 from Sh22, 244, implementation is still pending.

The government should honour its promise to release money to schools. Ideally, the money should be in school accounts before the reopening date.

The state must also provide adequate resources to sustain learning and avoid compromising the quality of education.