School heads warn funds delay to affect exams
School heads on Wednesday warned that the delay by government in releasing funds for free education will paralyse national examinations set to begin end of September.
Several schools heads told Nation that despite an earlier promise by government on the funds, it had only released the balance of funds for second term.
Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (Kessha) chairman John Awiti urged the government to release the funds to allow them prepare candidates for the national examination.
“We are concerned that the crunch for third term will affect examinations. Specimen and chemicals for practical examination have not been bought. The ministry of education must take responsibility for this,” said Mr Awiti.
Kenya Primary School Head Teachers Association chairman Joseph Karuga said it is unfortunate the government needs to be reminded before it can release funds to schools.
“We expected that the government will release funds on time but here again we are still making appeals two weeks after re-opening schools the way we did for second term,” said Mr Karuga.
He said that primary schools have only received 15 per cent of funds allocated for second term and wondered how they are supposed to use the amount to manage the activities of schools.
ALTERNATIVE SOURCES
“We did not get the second term allocations on time and we had to look for alternative sources. Now we are again begging for the release of the funds for third term,” said Mr Karuga.
He said that schools are waiting for the remaining 20 per cent which is supposed to be disbursed in third term.
“Learners are supposed to start their examination and we hope that the government will release the funds on time so that we are not inconvenienced,” said Mr Karuga.
Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) chairman Omboko Milemba said the government slackened in managing funds for education.
“We are worried the examination may not be done in accordance with the order in which they had been planned due to lack of funds. We cannot allow students in schools which rely on governments grants to be disadvantaged when the examination begin,” said Mr Milemba.
The Parliamentary Committee on Education on Wednesday warned that it will have to summon Education Cabinet Secretary Prof Jacob Kaimenyi to explain why the government has not released funds for free education.
Committee member Wilbur Otichilo said the Cabinet Secretary and his Principal Secretary Dr Bellio Kipsang had assured the committee that they will release the funds before schools re-opens.
“The Cabinet Secretary will have to explain to us before the end of this week why the schools have no funds yet candidates are supposed to start their national examination,” said Mr Otichilo.
