The Treasury must release cash to avert school crisis
What you need to know:
- Secondary schools are particularly hard hit by the unfolding financial crisis.
- Failure to release funding on time forces head teachers to procure goods on credit.
The National Treasury must release cash to run public schools ahead of next week’s reopening of the learning institutions to avoid worsening a bad situation. Secondary schools are particularly hard hit by the unfolding financial crisis, given that they admitted thousands of Form One students in August but did not receive a cent from the government to meet their operating expenses.
Public primary and secondary schools rely on the Treasury funding to buy food for students, fuel vehicles, pay board-employed teachers and non-teaching staff, settle water and electricity bills among other expenses. Parents reeling from the Covid-19 economic shocks are struggling to meet the back-to-back school fees requirement, further shrinking the supplemental funding that helps to keep the schools afloat.
It is not fair for the government to insist on 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary school but habitually fall behind in releasing the funding needed to keep these learning institutions open.
The 100 per cent transition policy has exerted a heavy strain on school infrastructure, confining students to congested classes, dining and boarding facilities.
Failure to release funding on time forces head teachers to procure goods on credit, meaning they settle for what is available other than the best quality, including the learners’ food supplies.
The congestion, dilapidated infrastructure and poor diet in turn contributes to students’ frustration and could be a major cause of the numerous incidents of unrest in our schools.
Negotiating for credit supplies also takes away valuable time that would be better spent on improving students’ academic performance, putting public school learners at a disadvantage compared to their private school colleagues who end up sitting for the same national examinations.
The bottom line is that the government cannot have its cake and eat it. Insisting on offering free primary and secondary education while always falling behind in releasing of budgeted cash is not a sustainable way of running public schools.
