Schools demand more boarding cash

Headteachers want boarding privatised in schools to ease headmasters’ workload due to rising food costs.

Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association chairman Cleophas Tirop said it will be difficult to keep students in class next term owing to the escalating costs. Schools reopen for the third term on Monday.

Prices of most goods has nearly doubled beyond the fees expected in the third term.

“We are talking of failure to raise enough money yet supplies like sugar are not in the market,” he said.

“The sugar rationing going on will affect schools adversely.”

Mr Tirop’s Nairobi School has about 1,000 students who use two bags of sugar daily, he claimed.

Privatising the boarding, Mr Tirop said, will free staff to concentrating on teaching.

Schools charge Sh13,500 for 39 weeks per student for boarding fees. This was too low to keep students comfortable given the rise in prices, he said.

If the proposal is implemented, schools would have to outsource the services.

But if the proposal is not adopted, Mr Tirop suggested, the government should increase fees so parents paid more for the boarding.

Adjust their budgets

“Head teachers will find it difficult to adjust their budgets,” he said.

Some schools are likely to divert money meant for sports to boarding.

The association called for an increase in the number of schools covered by the government-sponsored feeding programme.

Most schools in the programme are in arid and semi-arid areas. Under the free day secondary school started in 2008, the government pays Sh10,625 per student a year for tuition only.

But boarding schools charge more for food and cleaning for students in dormitories.

During their annual conference in Mombasa early this year, the headteachers called on the government to start paying salaries to support staff such as bursars and cleaners to ease their burden.