Schools put pressure on parents to clear fees debt

What you need to know:

  • Hundreds of students who reported back to their schools last week with outstanding fees have since been asked to go home and get the remaining money as school heads grapple with how to keep the students in schools without any problems.
  • Kahi Indimuli, the chairman of the Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association, asked the government to allow learning institutions to purchase maize directly from the National Cereals and Produce Board at affordable prices.

Schools are putting pressure on parents to clear their fees debt so the institutions can handle the rise in food prices.

Hundreds of students who reported back to their schools last week with outstanding fees have since been asked to go home and get the remaining money as school heads grapple with how to keep the students in school without any problems.

“We are asking parents to support us by paying fees on time since we have a huge responsibility of maintaining the children in schools and ensuring that they learn under conducive environment,” said Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association chairman Kahi Indimuli.

He asked the government to allow learning institutions to purchase maize directly from the National Cereals and Produce Board at affordable prices.

The prices of critical food items such as sugar, maize and beans have gone up over the last two months. This has caused problems for school administrations that had alreadydrawn up their budgets at the start of the year.

“We had set the budget of a bag of sugar at Sh4,000, now it is almost double. The same applies to milk, maize and beans,” said Mr Indimuli.

TO INTERVENE

He called on the government to intervene with speed and support the institutions.

“This is a very critical time and we do not want school activities to be interfered with just because students are complaining of lack of food,” said the chairman.

Sugar, maize flour, beans and sukuma wiki prices have risen 21.6 per cent, 31.2 per cent, 21.3 per cent and 63.2 per cent respectively.

“The increase in food prices was partly contributed by prevailing drought conditions. The year-on-year food inflation stood at 20.98 per cent in April 2017,” said Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

The fee structures for different categories of public secondary schools indicate that the government pays a subsidy of Sh12,870 while parents pay Sh53,554 for those in boarding schools. For those in day schools, a parent is supposed to pay Sh9,370.

Parents with children in special needs schools are required to pay Sh37,210 while the government pays Sh32,600.

The government has also set aside Sh14 billion for free education in primary schools and Sh33 billion for secondary schools starting July.

SCHOOL FEES

Several head teachers who spoke to the Nation admitted that it is hard for them to feed students since most parents are also struggling to pay school fees.

Day schools have also suspended provision of lunch to students due to lack of sufficient funds to feed the students as they are not allowed to charge extra charges.

National Parents Association chairman Nicholas Maiyo asked the government to step in, saying parents cannot afford the high cost of food items.

“Parents are also affected by this high cost of living and may not pay fees on time so it’s upon the government to cushion them,” said Mr Maiyo.