Amid tough times, Makini School offers fees reprieve to parents

As parents struggle to keep up with the reorganised school calendar, certain schools are offering some reprieve by reducing third term school fees by more than 50 per cent.

Makini School has announced that school fees for next term will be discounted to a third.

In a memo to parents, Finance Director Neil Stokes said parents of national curriculum learners will be invoiced a rounded-off fraction of the normal tuition fees.  

“We are pleased to inform you, following consultation and deliberation by management, that the tuition fees for the October 2021 term of the national curriculum will be discounted, in recognition of the financial burden on parents for having to pay four terms’ fees in 2021, compared to the usual three,” he said.  

The discount will apply to fees for learners already at Makini who were present for first term 2021 and who have completed at least one term at the school. 

It will also apply to parents who do not have outstanding fees by the start of the October term.       
    
This comes as parents across the country feel the pressure of having to pay school fees after just two months.

With learners in primary and secondary schools closing for a one-week holiday, parents must pay fees on October 10, the fourth time they will be doing so this year.

Already reeling under a harsh economy, many parents who spoke to the Nation on Wednesday said they would struggle to raise money when learners go back to school.

“It’s particularly difficult for parents whose children are in Form One. We paid fees for a full term just last month. Some of the learners have been at school for hardly a month,” Mr Stephen Mwangi, a parent from Murang’a County, said.

The school calendar was reorganised to make for time lost last year during the long closure occasioned by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, parents are now feeling the pinch of the crash programme that will have four school terms up to the end of next year.

Their situation has been worsened by the effects the pandemic has had on the economy.

Many parents lost their jobs while those in business saw their incomes tumble.

“The prices of almost everything have gone up but for most parents, we are earning less. We appeal to principals not to send away children for not paying school fees,” Ms Maggie Mutisya, a parent from Nairobi, said.