End of the road for private schools?

 I only receive 10 percent of my salary which amounts to Sh1,500. I have to sell second-hand clothes to survive,” Ms Maureen Kimani*, a teacher at a private school, told the Nation.

She is among hundreds of workers at Bridge International Academies, an international chain of low-cost schools that sent its staff on leave in March as a cost-cutting measure. Her story mirrors that of many other private school teachers.

When schools reopen in January as planned, a good number of private schools will not open. Thousands of jobs will also have been lost and some parents will be forced to find alternative schools for their children.

The Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA) on Sunday said that many schools face a cash crunch that is going to force them to shut down completely.

OPERATIONAL COSTS

KPSA chairperson Mutheu Kasanga said most private schools are struggling to meet operational costs and urged the government to bail them out.

“We are not asking for free money. We are asking to be allowed to borrow at affordable rates, just like other sectors who have been given relief and support,” Ms Kasanga said.

The last four months have been challenging for private schools as they have been starved of fees and their situation is expected to worsen in the coming six months. The ten-month closure is likely to destroy careers and have a huge impact on families.

Hundreds of thousands of employees working in private schools have been forced to take salary cuts, ordered to take unpaid leave or laid off. While focus has mainly been on teachers, the auxiliary staff that includes drivers, cooks, cleaners, watchmen, caregivers and finance staff have lost their jobs as their services are no longer required. It is estimated that private schools directly employ about 300,000 people.

“Only the staff deemed extremely essential are occasionally asked to go to carry out specific duties and are paid for only the days they work. The rest of us were forced to take leave in April,” a manager at a private school in Nairobi told the Nation and requested not to be named.

FARMING

The jobless teachers have had to take up odd jobs like farming and businesses to make ends meet. Equally affected are teachers employed in public schools by the boards of management.

Apart from being unable to pay salaries, private school owners have to contend with the painful reality that next year, they will pay for new licences for their businesses despite this year’s having been utilised for only two and half months.

Private schools must obtain business licences from county governments and also pay levies to the fire, health and hygiene departments.

“The county governments should support us by suspending the licences and activate them when schools reopen,” said Mr Patrick Nyaga, the director of Elite Heritage School in Chokaa, Nairobi. He said that, despite collecting some money from parents who have enlisted their children for e-learning, it was too little to meet the expenses of the school.

Some private schools are so crippled by debt that they run the risk of closing down or having their assets auctioned. The Nation is aware of some schools that have been thrown out by landlords after defaulting on rent.

PAY LOANS

In addition to rent, some owners are struggling to pay loans. Others have suppliers of various goods and services calling them incessantly demanding payment.

But Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary-General Wilson Sossion is on record opposing calls for a bail out of private schools saying that they are private businesses that should not be rescued using taxpayers’ money. He argued that the government has no social contract with them.

“The proposal by private school owners that the state should provide grants to enable them pay staff salaries is totally out of tune. Investors should seek alternative funding from financial institutions or elsewhere to keep their enterprises afloat,” said Mr Sossion.

While established private schools that have some cash reserves will weather the storm, newly founded schools and the unregistered ones especially in informal settlements might not survive.

Some of them were already struggling even before Covid-19 struck. It will be extremely difficult for them to secure funding as financial institutions are also wary of lending money to likely defaulters.