Eliminate corruption in Form One selection
What you need to know:
- According to the latest guideline, national and county boarding schools are supposed to charge a maximum of Sh66,424 a year. Day schools should charge Sh22,244 and special schools (for children with disabilities) are supposed to charge not more than Sh69,810.
- After the government subsidy, students should pay Sh53,554 in boarding school, and Sh9,374 for day school, and Sh37,210 for special schools.
- However, the fees in many schools exceed Sh100,000 due to additional charges, including those for construction, buying and maintaining school buses, tours, swimming, and holiday tuition. They even charge a bursary fee for poor students, leading to high dropout rates.
The release of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination results a month earlier that is usually the case and without a single cancellation are attributed to the reforms initiated by the Ministry of Education, which has worked hard to restore the credibility of the tests.
The next focus should now be Form One selection. Many headteachers regard this as their time to “eat”, so they demand millions of shillings in bribes from parents seeking to enrol their children in school.
Parents register their children on the waiting lists of schools, which in most cases means the end of the search unless they “know” someone who can talk to the principal.
If one has the right connections, one can purchase a Form One place for as much as Sh100,000, depending on the category of the school.
Another area that needs the re-energised attention of the Ministry of Education is the high number of pupils declining positions in national schools in favour of local day secondary schools. One reason is probably the exorbitant fees charged in such schools, in contradiction of the fee guidelines the ministry releases every year.
According to the latest guideline, national and county boarding schools are supposed to charge a maximum of Sh66,424 a year. Day schools should charge Sh22,244 and special schools (for children with disabilities) are supposed to charge not more than Sh69,810.
After the government subsidy, students should pay Sh53,554 in boarding school, and Sh9,374 for day school, and Sh37,210 for special schools.
However, the fees in many schools exceed Sh100,000 due to additional charges, including those for construction, buying and maintaining school buses, tours, swimming, and holiday tuition. They even charge a bursary fee for poor students, leading to high dropout rates.
Another cost that discourages bright pupils from poor families is the cost of the many accessories that schools demand before admission. One such demand is uniforms bought from specific shops.
Instead of negotiating a fair price on behalf of the parents, some headteachers receive kickbacks from such vendors, leaving the parents at the mercy of the traders who charge whatever they wish. This is outright theft.
When a student fails to report to school, a follow up should be made to find out why before the position is declared vacant. If the reason is to do with fees, a sponsorship programme should be made available to such a student.
Other than sponsorship from the government, information on other possible sources of financing should be made available to poor students.
The Ministry of Education should make sure that the fee guidelines are strictly enforced in all schools and errant headteachers punished.
There should also be guidelines on how to fill positions that are not taken up by the students picked during the national selection. Leaving this to headteachers encourages corruption.
Mr Maina is a businessman and author. [email protected]