New rules are to enhance accountability in schools, not take over role of the TSC

On April 8, 2015, I gazetted the Basic Education Regulations, 2015 to operationalise the Basic Education Act, 2013.

I issued the regulations on the authority of Section 95 of the Basic Education Act 2013, which allows the Cabinet Secretary in charge of Education, with appropriate consultation, to make regulations to give effect to the Act. Without these regulations, operations in schools and colleges would grind to a halt.

However, media reports about the regulations point to an inaccurate impression that the rules have given me powers to appoint and sack heads of schools and that my ministry did not conduct any consultations with the relevant stakeholders.

The truth of the matter is that the regulations do not interfere with the power of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to appoint school heads and exercise disciplinary control over them. The regulations acknowledge the constitutional and legal mandate of the TSC.

All that my ministry has done is to regularise the authority school heads appointed by TSC have been exercising in managing school resources.

These include funds provided under the Free Primary and Free Day Secondary Education programmes. Schools have other sources of capital/finance, including fees charged on parents, money for infrastructure development from the national government, the Constituency Development Fund, and grants from our development partners.

School heads handle these monies and coordinate their use without any contractual or legal arrangements to account for their use. What the regulations have done is to make the head of a school the accounting officer, an authority delegated by the Cabinet secretary, according to the Education Act.

What the regulations now require is that where impropriety is established on the part of the school head, the Cabinet secretary shall revoke the designation of such a head as the accounting officer and request the Teachers Service Commission for a replacement.

RECOGNISES MANDATE OF TSC

The regulations recognise the mandate of the TSC to appoint heads of public schools. That is why the minister only revokes the delegated authority after auditing of school accounts and other resources and establishing impropriety on the part of the head teacher.

The mandate the Constitution gives to TSC is restricted to teachers and is limited to teacher management. It does not extend to raising and funding the running of schools. This power is reposed in the CS.

Public educational institutions run on public funds or funds raised on the authority of the government, hence the need for accountability, as demanded by the Constitution, which spells out good governance, integrity, transparency, accountability, national values, and principles of governance, which school heads are subject to as public officers.

In developing the regulations, the ministry made wide-ranging consultations with key stakeholders, among them the two teachers’ unions, the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association, the Kenya Primary School Heads Association, the Teachers Service Commission, the Kenya Institute of Education, the Kenya Private Schools Association, religious organisations, and parents’ associations. The ministry organised four consultative meetings to discuss the regulations between August and October 2014. The media covered three of the meetings.

I believe the regulations are well meant and if supported, will give Kenya a platform to deliver to her children the best education within its power in terms of resources and the fund of knowledge, experience, and wisdom all players in education have.

The regulations will give the government an opportunity to constitute new boards of management for schools. Many schools have been operating without these boards because there was no law upon which new ones could be constituted.

They also provide for the creation of an effective teaching and learning environment that will ensure learners’ safety and wellbeing.

I invite Kenyans of goodwill to secure a copy of the regulations to find out for themselves what the ministry has done to ensure that we conduct the business of education with integrity, transparency, and accountability.

Prof Kaimenyi is the Cabinet Secretary for Education