Headteachers demand fees in fear of free education

Public school heads are forcing parents to clear this year’s fees before next month's General Election.

The push is premised on uncertainty arising from the twin promise of free education by the two leading presidential contenders President Uhuru Kenyatta of the Jubilee Party and Mr Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement in the National Super Alliance.

The headteachers fear they may not meet their financial obligations in the initial months of Jubilee Party or National Super Alliance administration; the political groups have both promised free education in all public schools.

In case he wins, Mr Odinga says parents will not pay fees from September while Mr Kenyatta has pledged the same starting January 2018.

GIVEN INSTRUCTIONS

When schools released learners for half-term break last month, most of them were issued instructions for their parents and guardians to offset any outstanding balances with emphasis to pay term three fees upfront.

“Dear parent, kindly make arrangements to clear your daughter’s fees balance by end of July failing which we shall send her home. Ignore this message if you have already cleared,” was one such message issued to a parent by a Nairobi school.

With exactly 30 days to the polls, a random check with parents from different parts of the country showed that headteachers and principals were racing against time to collect the fees.

Unless Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i intervenes, parents and guardians will be wishing that August 8 comes sooner than later.

'SELFISH NEED'

“We are suffering because of pledges being made by politicians. We know some of them are solely informed by the selfish need to win votes and do not really mean what they say. The ministry must rein in the rogue teachers who are punishing innocent parents out of such,” said Ms Lilian Masibo from Nakuru, who has a son in a national school in the Rift Valley.

Voicing the tribulations of parents, chairman of the National Parents’ Association Nicholas Maiyo accused schools of violating the fees payment circular which stipulates the breakdown of the monies to be paid in a year.

“The guideline requires headteachers to use the ratio of 50:30:20 to collect fees. (50 per cent of the fees is to be collected in first term, 30 per cent in the subsequent term and the remaining 20 per cent in third term),” Mr Maiyo said.

MANY COMPLAINTS

He said his office had received a barrage of complaints from concerned parents and guardians who have been forced to stay with their children at home as they are unable to raise the amounts required in full.

“Afraid that whoever between Jubilee and Nasa comes in after the elections will compel them to release KCPE and KCSE certificates to their former students with outstanding arrears like it happened before, principals are pushing learners to clear them now,” the chairman said.

With a study by the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (Kippra) indicating that the survival rate from Class One to Form Four is below 20 per cent in the country, while those who survive from Class One to university is 1.69 per cent, such punitive measures can only be counter-productive on the campaign to boost transition from primary to secondary, and tertiary levels of learning. The country has some 8,592 public secondary schools.

FIGHTING BACK

But the principals are fighting back. They have borne the brunt of pronouncements by politicians in the past and are creating a buffer just in case history repeats itself, they hold.

“We are experiencing apathy in terms of fees payment from parents who are waiting and hoping that the government will scrap the fees next term or next year,” Kenya Secondary School Heads Association chairman Kahi Indimuli said.

Saying they welcome plans for free education, the Kessha boss said there was nothing wrong in collecting third term fees now.

“The fears of headteachers are well founded because parents tend to listen to politicians a lot. These men and women run schools with meagre resources,” he maintained.

BANK LOANS

He explained that the worry of his colleagues was the loans they have with commercial banks whose repayment will suffer if parents fail to meet their obligations.

The delay has triggered talk that the Jubilee administration may have diverted the money meant for schools to the ongoing campaigns. Most school heads we spoke to fear complaining to the ministry directly or in the press for fear of victimisation this being a “sensitive period”.

“I do not want to be seen as the one pointing a finger of ‘failure’ on the part of the government when the President is seeking re-election,” one of them said.

NOT SENT

There is an even bigger problem for the schools even as the term draws to a close. The ministry is yet to send the stipulated 30 per cent of the total capitation.

What has been disbursed is a paltry 12.5 per cent making the day-to-day running of the institutions even harder.

“The bulk of the capitation is still with the government yet we are way past the middle of the term. It has meant that teaching-learning materials are not available,” said Mr Indimuli, the Chavakali Boys’ High School principal.

Our attempts to get response from Education ministry on pending disbursement to schools were unsuccessful from Friday. Both the CS Matiang’i and the Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang did not return our calls or reply to our text enquiries on whether they were aware of the situation or when the funds would reach schools.

MAIZE FLOUR

Equally, schools have not been spared the pangs of maize flour shortage the country has been facing, eating into their resources with some being forced to release learners longer than usual for half-term to save on budget.

In its manifesto, Nasa promises to implement free secondary education in the first 90 days in power. Primary education is already subsidised by the government, an ambitious initiative started by the National Rainbow Coalition administration in 2002.

Dr Matiang’i is reportedly working on the modalities of an undertaking that will not only see school enrolment rise but also force the National Treasury to allocate more funds to the education ministry.

With the Jubilee administration being more pre-occupied with securing a second term, there is well founded reason to fear that the lamentation by the schools will take a back seat since most of the officials who can attend to them are out in the field campaigning for President Kenyatta.