Hundreds of thousands of children from vulnerable homes have a reason to smile after Parliament overruled the Treasury and reinstated Sh2 billion for capitation of the school feeding programme.
This is after the National Assembly’s Education committee reversed the budget cuts for the financial year starting July 1.
Julius Melly, who chairs the committee, told the National Assembly’s Budget and Appropriations Committee (BAC) that Sh2 billion had been reinstated under the National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya (NACONEK) budget.
The Treasury had scrapped the multi-billion shillings budget for the school feeding programme in the proposed budget estimates for the financial year 2024/25.
The feeding programme was allocated Sh4. 9 billion in the financial year ending June 30, 2024.
“The committee has reinstated Sh2 billion under the NACONEK for this important programme,” Mr Melly said.
“However, the amount reduced from the programme was Sh4.9 billion. The committee recommends that the Budget and Appropriations Committee considers allocating an additional Sh3 billion so that the entire amount is reinstated.”
Mr Melly said the school feeding programme is a critical intervention which supports the retention of learners in schools in marginalised areas, especially in arid and semi-arid areas as well as slums in urban settings.
“This allocation should be provided under the NACONEK which is the institution tasked with implementing this programme,” Mr Melly said.
“We have also made it clear that NACONEK organises itself. They have now been given a board or a council to run its affairs.”
The Treasury has allocated Sh642 billion to finance the education programme in the financial year 2024/25, a Sh47 billion reduction compared to the current financial year allocation of Sh689 billion.
Ndindi Nyoro, who chairs the BAC demanded to know what it will cost for the government to feed children assuming there will be no supplementary budget.
“It should be very clear that where we sit, education is our number one priority. Even as we make the budget, we make it assuming there is not going to be a supplementary budget,” Mr Nyoro said.
“In that regard, if the 2024/25 financial year will have no supplementary budget, are you going to survive as a Ministry? We have had floods and drought and Kenyans want to survive. If there is not going to be a supplementary budget, how much money is needed for the school feeding programme.”
Mr Nyoro supported Mr Melly’s proposal to have 46,000 Junior Secondary Schools intern teachers hired on permanent and pensionable terms.
The Education Committee has proposed that JSS teachers be hired on permanent and pensionable terms and backdated their hiring from January 2025 to July 20224.
“We need to provision the money in the budget for hiring of JSS teachers on permanent and pensionable terms assuming there will be no supplementary budget,” Mr Nyoro said.
“We have JSS teachers and the first batch was 26,000. The second batch was 20,000. We want to know how much it will cost to hire the entire 46,000 JSS teachers on permanent and pensionable terms.”
“We want to know how it will cost us if we bring back employment of the intern teachers from January 2025 to July 2024. They have endured and sacrificed their time to teach our children as interns,” Mr Nyoro said.
Embakasi East MP Babu Owino demanded that all intern teachers be hired on pensionable terms going forward.
“I support JSS teachers being paid 46,000 in hardship areas and 38,000 in other areas considered not hardship,” Mr Owino said.
“There is a lot of chaos in the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC). You find one teacher trained to teach two subjects is being forced to teach eight subjects.
“We need sufficient human capital and their salaries be improved even as we work for infrastructure upgrades like laboratories.”
He said there is a big problem in the university’s new funding model where a student is required to pay Sh1.2 billion for four years for a social course when others pay Sh600,000 per year for a medical course for six years.
“We need to do something about this funding model. We need checks and balances to ensure equity in education,” Mr Owino said.
Naisula Lesuda supported more funding for hiring of JSS interns arguing that Teachers Service Commission should give priority to interns so that others can be employed as interns.
“We need to stick with the Budget Policy Statement. Infighting in the Ministry should not scrap the school feeding programme which retains pupils in school. I thank the chairman and the committee for reinstating it,” Ms Lesuda said.
