Private schools oppose bid to extend first term

Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA) is opposed to proposals to have first term extended to compensate for time lost during the election period.

The association’s chief executive officer, Mr Peter Ndoro said the move by head teachers particularly from public schools pushing for the additional time was not applicable to the private institutions.

He said extending the closure date would interfere with the entire academic calendar for this year and instead said the affected schools should come up with ways to recover the lost days within the official days, for this term.

“We are prepared to end this term on April 12. Asking for more days will affect the other terms particularly third term when learners are supposed to be on final touches as they prepare for the national examinations,” said Mr Ndoro.

He said the private schools were not used as centres during nomination time, which went on for more than a day and only lost two days during the election period.

“Our perspective is that the two days in a term does not warrant the ministry of education to alter the academic calendar. We have come up with internal mechanisms to address the lost time,” said Mr Ndoro.

He said it would be unfair for the private schools to be compelled to close after April 12, as this would translate to unnecessary budgets for the schools, when they were set for the closure.

Kenya Primary schools association want a one week extension arguing that they needed more time to recover time lost during the elections.

The government banned holiday tuition and teachers who have not covered enough of this term’s syllabus are worried that the students might be ill-prepared for national examinations should the lost time not be factored in the academic calendar.

Some parents interviewed said they would only accept the extension as long the institutions do not demand for extra charges from them.

“If they want us to cater for the additional days, am sorry they should direct the request to the government because we are not the ones who decided on the day of the party primaries and the election date,” said Mr Joseph Ondieki, a parent from Mwanzo estate.

At the same time, some parents have also protested over a move by schools that were newly elevated to national status to increase school fees long, before they improved their facilities to reflect the change of status.

They appealed to the government to order the schools’ management to continue charging fees for provincial schools while waiting for improvement of equipment and classrooms to meet the status of national schools.

Meanwhile, the Kenya national union of teachers (KNUT) has asked teachers across the country to use the available time properly in order to cover for the time lost during the General Election.

KNUT acting secretary- general Xavier Nyamu said that the union is opposed to any attempt to extend school terms even for a single day.

“Several teachers attend colleges, while others attend promotion courses and therefore the extension of term will affect their programmes,” said Mr Nyamu.

Primary school head teachers early this week asked the ministry of education to extend the first term to make up for the lost time.

Public schools were closed for two weeks late January and early this month as they were being used as polling centres for party nomination and for the March 4 elections.

The acting secretary –general maintained that teachers know how to adjust and assured parents that the syllabus for first term will be covered well.

Mr Nyamu at the same time said that the discussion for payment of teachers Sh25 billion in allowances was going on well.

“We are now waiting for the degazettment of the legal notice No. 16 of 2003,” he said adding that the degazettement of the legal notice will allow KNUT and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to negotiate the framework for implementation of legal notice No. 534 of 1997.